If I Believed

One source of identity issues I have is that there are few things that I really know, believe, or am certain about – whether it be about myself or reality around me. This leaves a minimalistic structure of reality that supports my existence. With a majority being free space in my frame of reality, so much space & such simplicity allows me to easily reconstruct and rearrange my reality.

Because of this, I’m always acting.

Most thoughts don’t stem from “I believe this, therefore this is my truth.” But rather I think “IF I believed this, what would that imply about me and reality?” In viewing my thoughts with this perspective, I lose ownership of the potential truth attained through the question. My thoughts often don’t feel like they belong to me; they belong to the theoretical individual I created to gain a peak at reality from another perspective.

Gaining insight from others’ perspectives helps expand your own perspective of reality. But you also learn how flawed everyone’s perspective really is. No one is wrong, but I have yet to meet someone who was right.

I think this is why I have such difficulty trusting my own perspective. Even though my scope of reality tends to exceed that of the average person, I realize how limited any perspective is inherently. So instead of respecting my perspective and all the time I spent forming it, I know at least some part of it is wrong. So I interrogate my perspective until I break it.

As I said, my perspective far exceeds the average person. The benefits of a wide perspective are numerable, and though I believe expanding one’s perspective should be pursued by everyone, there are detrimental effects as well. For one, it’s hard to genuinely defend ideas that I think are partially wrong, even if I think that it’s more correct than whatever the other person is saying. As a result, those with small perspectives tend to be much more confident in their beliefs. But their confidence stems from such a limited perspective.

It’s easy to accomplish things with a narrow perspective on life. When you only see what’s in front of you, you only know to move forward. You no longer make decisions, because you’re only aware of the one possibility. It might not lead you to the goal or destination you want, but you’ll at least get somewhere. In contrast, a wide perspective lets you choose a path, but once you choose a path, it’s much easier to get distracted by all of the other possibilities. By seeing everyone confidently walking forward creates uncertainty and hesitation in my own path.