Perspectives

I am a strong believer in perspectives. Perspective changes everything.

Yet, some perspectives are ridiculously hard to achieve. Like the one where you look at yourself as an outsider. Maybe I can step back - but can I look at myself as another person would? No, I cannot. I am restricted by me. The assumptions  I make about myself. The curse of knowledge. Knowledge about myself.

I have always maintained that the person who knows you best is yourself. I still hold on to that. But then, I realize it is a biased perspective. To see that knowledge in its raw form objectively is very difficult. It is too complex. So we have checkpoints. Abstractions. Assumptions. Axioms. Call it what you want, but it is biased.

I hold that I do not care about how the world sees me as long as I am true to myself. But how do I know if I am lying to myself about being true? The conscience. Yes, it pricks sometimes. Hey, this is not the right thing. But what is the right thing anyways if it is not relative to the external world? How can you just be true to yourself when you are interacting with the external world? Ofcourse I care about how the world sees me. Infact, that is how I define being true to myself. If I am to focus on the “me” which is truly outside external influence, the whole system of measurement would change. But no, I wont go there. I am scared to go there. The whole world would collapse. So what? No no no. I wont go there. Not yet.

So, I care about what the world thinks of me. It defines my values.  Yet, I cannot see myself as the world sees me.

That is what good friends are for. To tell me that I am the problem.