An Aerial Perspective

When you are up above the rest of the world, flying in the sky in a plane, the world always appears to be a riot of colours on canvas…. Miniatures painted with a free hand. No matter how many times you’ve done it, you never cease to marvel at how gigantic you seem and how tiny everything else becomes—even the tallest, highest, largest landmarks. The perspective lent by height is worth musing about.  

People who attain great heights in life—personal heights of success attained by great effort ; spiritual heights attained by great reflection and resulting action; or mental heights attained by great intellectual observation and exercise—also attain a perspective that sets them apart. They see the world from a birds’ eye view: where everything falls into the larger scheme of things yet every little detail is important and never escapes their eye. They can focus on the entire picture without missing the details, so to speak.

The essence of it lies in being able to enjoy the little things, without losing grasp of the larger reality; of being able to see problems from the perspective of height: at the level they may seem gigantic but with distance, everything will be turned insignificant. Every setback that seems insurmountable will appear temporary on hindsight; at the very least it will be remembered as a lesson learnt.

With time and distance, the perspective shifts; the problems that appear truly challenging to a child are things that you would laugh at, as a grown up. The heartaches and heartbreaks of teenage appear trivial as you mature. However, to dismiss these as trivial is again a partial perspective: it means you’re missing out on the details and only looking at the big picture.

The problems were very real and pressing at that point of time.  The truth is, at that age and that juncture in life, you were not as well-equipped (mentally, physically, or spiritually) as you would be later. For a child the proportionate size of those problems compared to her/his coping abilities was huge. For a teenager, her/his problems are too large compared to the emotional strength. As an adult, your coping abilities and strengths have multiplied manifold. So in truth, the problems really are not insignificant, they just appear to be so later. Like I said before, now you have a different perspective— you are viewing things from a height.  

I will reiterate: there are two things that lie at the heart if this matter: the big picture as well as the details.  When you truly attain height and can see the big picture, you will know that all your present troubles will, over the course of time, be reduced to miniatures. That life in aerial view is truly beautiful… you just need to attain the right altitude.

The second and equally important part is the details. Understanding the fact that little things will always be important in life, no matter how high you reach. The picture is more than the sum of its parts, yes, but it’s the tiny strokes that bring a touch of perfection to the masterpiece.

When you are paying attention to the details, you will not be unsympathetic to, or mocking of, the problems of another person: because you know that on the ground that huge skyscraper really is huge—and just because you, at a height, can see it reduced to a miniature doesn’t mean the other person is weak or incapable. He or she is still on the ground, still in the process of attaining that height.