Perspective

Photo: L. Weikel

I’ll admit it; I got lost in the rabbit hole that is my photos again this evening.

But I did find one photo that I’d like to share. I was glad to see that I’d taken it, since another photo I’ve already used in a couple of posts is indeed great, but it does not give anywhere near the sense of perspective that this newer photo provides.

As you can see, it is the photo of the Chinggis Khan statue that overlooks a massive plateau on the outskirts of Ulaan Baatar, the capital of Mongolia.

The photo I’ve used before is taken from just below it. You can tell it’s no ordinary civil war statue, if you know what I mean. But this other photo helps give perspective.

It’s interesting to contemplate perspective. It is, as they say, ‘everything.’ Everywhere we look (or feel, or ‘find ourselves’) lately, we’re being bombarded with circumstances or experiences that are seriously challenging our understanding of perspective.

It’s Chilly Out There

Just off the top of my head, I’m thinking about the nearly mind-numbing arctic conditions swooping into the upper mid-west and slowly making its way east. I’ll admit; I’m having a hard time comprehending potential wind chills of negative 60 degree Farenheit. I think I saw Chicago is supposed to have a ‘high’ of negative 14 degrees. Straight up. No wind chill taken into account.

That’s frigid. That’s Siberia cold. And while I’ve never been in Siberia in the winter, I do have a little bit of perspective – we lived in Buffalo for three years back in the early ‘80s. But even having Buffalo for perspective, this ‘polar vortex’ being experienced in our country now is virtually unprecedented and simply lethal.

Shout out to my friends and family who are in the midst of this weather: please stay safe and warm, snug inside your homes.

Something Seems Awry

Another example of perspective that comes to mind this evening has to do with the daily outrageous revelations that erupt from Washington D.C. If we’ve been paying attention at all, we know that this presidency is unlike any other in the history of our country.

(I will admit here to having written several paragraphs on the revelation this evening about additional meetings that have been held between D.T and V. P., notes and transcripts of the conversations between the two securely – and most importantly SOLELY – in the hands of our adversary. But I have deleted all of those paragraphs and will sate myself with simply making this brief mention here and asking – no, entreating – you to please consider putting the egregiousness of this flaunting of our right to know what is being said in these meetings into perspective. And by ‘our’ I mean those who are tasked with protecting us, the American people: our intelligence agencies and other governmental experts and advisors.)

Perspective in this situation is critical to perceiving the enormity of the unprecedented ‘kompromat’ taking place right before our very eyes. And all of us have a gut feeling about it, even if we adamantly do not want to believe it could be true.

What happens when we lose perspective?

Because so much takes place every day, because so many scandals smack us in the face like a relentless battering of waves after we’ve fallen on the beach, keeping us from even being able to catch our breath, we are in danger of losing our perspective.

We cannot allow this to happen. (I say that, knowing full well we already have. And yet…) The stakes are too high to simply look the other way. We must do our best to seek and maintain perspective.

So perhaps a mnemonic might assist. The statue of Chinggis Khan looks pretty big as it is. But wow – when we step a few paces back and look at it in context to everything and everyone around it – you can feel it in your bones. It’s massive.

We can and must apply that same exercise in perspective to our government, and specifically, those in the Executive Branch. I think if we take a few steps back and look at it from that perspective, we just might get that weak-kneed, watery-insides feeling that tells us: this is massive; we need to pay attention.

(T-1032)