Point of View

 

 

“After the darkness has been dispelled, our grand[children] will be able to walk back into the pure radiance of the past.” – Petrarch

 

 

A group of businessmen gather to learn lessons from notable intellectuals about history, eventually taking a trip to an ancient culture for more in-depth experience. The more they learn, the more they determine that they want to build a Conscious Community.

 

As the community’s influence and wealth grows, so does its interest in developing simple heroism, classic elegance and wisdom derived from the past. They determine, in reading the past, that it is not a spiritual leader – not the Bible – and not a worthless image of humanity – but Man as an independent, intelligent, adventurous and capable embodiment of the world that is to be exalted.

 

The community that flourishes as a result of these conversations is not focused on rituals but on education for all. Everyone is taught business writing and administration, as well as public speaking and creative writing. As one teacher – of the well-off as well as the poor – said, “Not everybody is called to be a lawyer, a physician, a philosopher… but all of us are created for the life of social duty, all of us are responsible for the personal influence which goes out from us.”

 

One night at a dinner party, two people meet and share wisdom from their two worlds – one based on this enlightened education, the other schooled in the practicality of materialism. Together they inspire each other to create something that has never been done before.

 

The two are inspired by the teachings of yet a third man, from another place and time, which has even more of a global impact -- soon another dimension is added to perspective. Everything in society begins to change dramatically in the way people begin to not only see, but understand the world from a different point of view.

 

Man in the cosmos takes on different proportions. Man is now placed within a scale.

 

With this profound new way of seeing, man’s experiences, observations and points of view become a fundamental aspect of how the community creates itself.

• Artists' perspectives change.

• An interest in psychology and personal storytelling grows, leading to biographies of ordinary men and women, and tales of daily lives.

• Music comes alive.

• Objects are mathematically assessed at a distance from each other.

• Architectural style evolves to reflect the point of view of the observer.

• Cities are envisioned as a harmonious universe of connection.

• Map-making is dramatically transformed as man better understands its place within the scale.

• The planets in the sky become measurable.

 

As one student of this Renaissance in education put it, in a dramatic departure from what had been the earlier point of view: “If the universe is infinite then the Earth is not necessarily, or even possibly, at its centre. And if that is so, the Earth may well be circling the Sun. It is only the viewpoint of the observer as he stands on the Earth that makes him think it the centre of the universe. The same would be true of anybody standing on the Moon or on any one of the stars and planets there might be in the universe.

 

And if everything were relative to everything else, the only way to know where you were, on Earth or on a planet, would be to find a way to measure the ‘elsewhere.’”

 

After the writer of those words unexpectedly died, two of his friends met for the first time at his funeral. The one who had studied the mathematics of perspective and distance between objects recognized the value of gridded mapping technique, and estimated a pathway across waters that might help his new friend’s efforts to reach the farthest edge of navigation.

 

With that further evolution in map-making -- after the idea is rejected by many -- one body of leadership opts to arrange for passage to what they hope is a quicker pathway to the bounties of the East. Though... the perspective of the map-maker is limited and the grid is not accurate, as it turned out.

 

 

And thus, by an accident of execution created from a long change of Perspective.... Europe discovers the Americas.

 

Where the Story, as ever, Continues.....

 

try any of the moments highlighted in yellow to follow the story of the universe in new ways.