Perspectives

I want to take a short break from the 'sagas' of my past and talk about something that I touched on in my prior post. That would be the perspectives that people have based on the 'environment' where they are from.

Everyone starts from a certain environment that they were raised in. That of course is influenced by their parents (or whomever raised them) and the influences and perspectives of the community or society around them. Most people never truly leave the environment that they were raised in. That is to say that they may 'visit' other environments, or even 'know' people from other environments, but rarely do they get to the point where they 'live and fully understand' the perspectives of any environment outside of where they live in. Therefore, they tend to think pretty much the same as everyone else that they've been exposed to. Meaning that what they view as 'right', or 'impressive', or 'better', or even 'normal' is based on what everyone else in their own environment views as that.

The part that many people fail to consider is that what they view as 'better' or 'impressive' usually is totally different than the perspectives of the people from different environments or even different 'social-economic classes'.

Case in point. When I was in university, I was there to study hard and launch my professional career. I viewed my career as starting the day I started university, and not the day after I had graduated and actually started making a paycheck. The people I looked up to and respected were the people who were also doing the same things I was doing, and studying daily, getting A's, and building their career potential every single day. Those are the people that I thought were 'impressive', 'better', or the 'best'. To a point, I also only 'respected' people who were in good physical shape and exercised fairly regularly. The funny thing is that it never occurred to me at first that other people didn't consider that the most 'impressive' or the 'best'. But I had no point-of-reference to contrast that belief. All my friend's and peers thought as I did.

An example. I remember one time in my graduating year after I had completed (or was in the process of completing) all my degree requirements. I could actually take a few 'elective' courses outside of my degree. I always loved pscychology, so took a second and third year psychology course for personal interest. At the time I considered any Arts course to be a 'rubber' course, because it didn't require near as many hours of study and practice as the Science courses that I was taking. Admitedly, I looked down on Arts students unless they were in an after graduate (Master's or Ph.D.) program. So did everyone else that was a dedicated student in the Sciences (or other specific disciplines like Commerce and such).

There was this one attractive girl in my psych class that I sat next to and would talk to regularly. She was attractive, but I had no interest in her because she was an 'Arts student'. That's just the mind set I had. I did feel myself in a way 'superior' because I was in a much more difficult discipline. (Once again, so did everyone else in my 'environment'.) Meanwhile, I'm sure she though herself in a way 'superior' to me because she probably saw me as somewhat of a 'geek' in her eyes. That's the perspective she would have based on her 'environment'. In human nature terms, we were just being the exact same way. Products of 0ur environments.

The reason I became aware of this is because one day I was at my locker and she walked past with a friend and I said 'hello' (as we often talked together in class). She looked right at me (we were five feet apart) and pretended not to know me because she either didn't want her friend to know that seh knew me, or was afraid that I was interested in dating her. This made me laugh. I wasn't interested in her. In my mind, she wasn't in 'my league'. And it occured to me, in her mind, she felt the same about me.

This is just a sample of what happens in every environment or society of life. We just naturally assume that our environment's perspectives are the 'best' and due to the fact that we are rarely exposed to a contrasting view because we have a tendency to stick to our own 'kind' who think that same way that we do, we are often unaware or surprised that people don't think in the same way as to what is 'right' or 'normal' or 'better'.

The truth is, that none is 'better'. Each one is just different. I may think someone is 'unaware' because they don't 'know' the same things as I do becasue they've never been exposed to the same teachings or concepts or experiences as I. So you 'could' say they are therefore 'unaware' of how I perceive because of it. But I am also 'unaware'. I don't know the things that they know unless I've lived their lives, and learned from the same experiences and perspectives as they have. Neither one is better or worse, or more aware for that matter. We just know different things, and think differently based on 'what we know'. In reality, we are still all being the same as we are judging the world and forming our perspectives based on our own personal life's experiences.

Until I started truly living and understanding other 'environments' these concepts never truly occurred to me. How human. How we are all so different, and yet so very much the same all at the same time.

I could elaborate much more than this, and originally was going to go into more detail. But I don't feel like it, and it's not really necessary anyway.