An Exercise in Perspective

I've been trying to decipher why I am such a confusing, seemingly contradictory person. I've concluded that the issue is my perspective.

Take a moment to glance over your computer; what do you see? Is it nothing more to you than a portal to the currents of informative fluid? A fishbowl with whole worlds inside? Or perhaps you might see the dried aftermath of your friend's dog splashing coca-cola across it. I could go on and on about my computer Robert Pirsig style, or the Java express cup beside it, or the tacky lamp of from a some forgotten era of atrocious, yet oddly charming decor. I love that lamp.
When I consider my computer, the most important detail in not that I live so much of my life through my fingertips; with the cup, the drink it held no longer matters; with the lamp, it's soft glow isn't why I love it. My point is that the actual purpose I have these things for is so much less fascinating than what the object is and what it represents. The coins in No Country for Old Men come to mind.
I can look at anything and be fascinated. I look work around a strip mine and Thermal Power Plants, and I consider it all to be quite pretty. However, though I can be amazed at the masterpiece that is a computer or a cup, I don't care about them. They could all be gone, and I wouldn't feel particularly bad, though definitely inconvenienced. I could be gone, and the world wouldn't lament. Everything is insignificant.

I was asked during a troublesome but ultimately beneficial conversation with an important mentor months ago whether I felt I was somehow unique or special. I do not, I am the same decaying organic matter as everything else. But for a moment, wonder with me what the nature of the word 'special' really is. If it is mere abnormality, then what is normality. Can anyone tell me what a special person is? Can anyone caught up in the 'disillusionment' fad explain to me why one 19 year old cannot shake the foundations of the Earth? Could a single unfortunately designed curve in a single road in Sarajevo have decided the course of the 20th century? What would the world be like today if Gavrilo Princip's pistol had proven unreliable? Everything, down the priming caps of two small bullets is of earth shattering significance.

But wait a moment, didn't I say that everything is insignificant, but now I've said the opposite. Do you see my dilemma? Anything could come to play a determining role in our future. It is a special person who changes the world so profoundly, but it could be anyone: you, or I, or that annoying "gangsta" down the street who doesn't know how to dress himself. Anyone. This implies that we're all special, which makes 'special' the new 'mediocre'.

I'm not sure if I have succeeded in communicating the sheer level of oddity in my thought process, but I tried.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't stand by the conclusions which have come out of my mind, such as condemning the practice of terminating pregnancy with the kind of religious zeal which makes other patrons in the restaurant not wish to sit near you anymore, yet at the same time I have a hard time with the ethics of prohibiting it even though I'm morally in favor of such prohibition.

Rather than continuing down this winding goat path through the mountains and valleys of my mind, I'll just cut right to my point. My perspective is fragmented and I look at the world as though through several pairs of different eyes and I really need to find a way to unify them in order to reach my full analytical potential.

I'll close with the reason I'm so relaxed, even to the point of seeming unappreciative of the gravity of some situations. If I fail to change the world, to fight ignorance and indifference, and/or to feed the masses it won't matter, because I do not matter. I am but one man and even my death would not draw great notice nor would it end my goal. 6 billion humans and rising, I'm sure there are more Mes out there to take my place, more on the way and no matter how many fail the law of averages says one will succeed, and that's all I need to know.

Ben Davies
Silent River Kung fu
Stony Plain, Alberta, Canada
www.silentriverkungfu.com