We observe differences

Have you ever thought about how our experiences in life shape our understanding of the world?

Our mindsets, or paradigms, play a big role in how we perceive things. For example, we know what holiness is because we have experienced sin. We are able to distinguish between our loved ones and strangers because they look different from one another.

It’s a pretty simple but profound principle – we learn and understand because we observe differences.

There’s this poem by John Godfrey Saxe that illustrates this idea really well. It’s about six blind men who go to see an elephant. Each of them touches a different part of the elephant and describes it based on their limited observations. One thinks the elephant is like a wall because he touched its side, another thinks it’s like a rope because he touched its tail. None of them are wrong, but they are only seeing a small part of the elephant.

The same goes for our understanding of life.

We all have our own limited perspectives, so it’s important to recognize that we may not have the whole picture.

We can learn from each other’s observations and experiences to gain a more complete understanding of the world.