A New Perspective

Our last guest speaker, Ramsay, started off his presentation with a little experiment on perspective.  He showed us a picture of a square with several smaller squares inside.  He asked us how many squares we saw.  There were many different answers, all of which were correct depending on how you looked at it.  The point of the experiment was to open up our minds to realize that for every thing, every situation, there are many perspectives. There is more than one way to look at it.  This really got me thinking.

I drive on the H3 twice a week to go to school.  When I'm driving, all I see is a road.  For the people who worked endless years on this dangerous freeway, I'm sure they look at the H3 and see accomplishment, success.  We may pass by a random house and think house, while the owner passes by thinking home.  We pass by trees and never take the time to notice the complexity of them, while a botanist may see a tree and think roots, bark, trunk, leaves, crown.  Even the saying "one man's trash is another man's treasure," really shows that it's all in the way we perceive things.  I'm not sure if I'm making any sense, but I'm still trying to wrap my brain around this entire concept. 

I think this is the reason why art is so fascinating--for every painting, there are so many ways to look at it.  The meaning of the painting to the artist may be very different than to each viewer.

What do you see?