When we have a microscope’s view of the world, we tend to stay self-focused, egotistical, selfish, envious, greedy, racist, sexist and/or nationalistic.
We tend to only be able to see what is trapped within the tiny view of what our microscope sees. We think it is our entire world. We forget that there even IS a microscope–which includes a much bigger view containing not only the microscope, but many other microscopes as well.
Any acknowledgement of the microscope itself would require us to abandon our own small view.
We often cannot afford to let that happen.
We will argue for our view.
We will kill for our view.
We will vote for our view.
We will lock ourselves in our rooms with our view. We think we are happy in our, “Room Without a View.”
Along with these negative attributes we also lose the ability to think critically, to question authority and to develop empathy. We become superstitious and turn to junk science and anecdote to bolster our cause. It becomes a world of “us vs them” or “me vs you.” It becomes a world of “my way or the highway” or, “my country right or wrong.” It becomes a world of my religion is better than your religion, even though “most” of those religions agree there is only one God. And of course there is a special place reserved for those that do not think there is any God at all.
You get a sense of just how far off course we have gotten when people speak of these things as “good qualities.”
Our great constitutional republic (rapidly approaching corporate oligarchy) is in grave danger of being overwhelmed by microscopic views of the way things are.
I doubt very many of us are completely happy with any of the choices we have to vote for this November, but ask yourself honestly, which candidate represents the best chance for seeing the whole microscope and which would be most likely to deny there even is one.
When a majority of people only see what the microscope sees, there is great danger to anyone with either a different microscope or who is interested in seeing the whole microscope.
The micro-view is an awesome tool for learning about oneself, but one should probably see the whole microscope, and understand the whole microscope, in order to use the correct focus, the correct magnification, and the correct lighting to have any chance of interpreting what the microscope sees.
While it might be “interesting” see the hairs on a Carpenter Ants wings, seeing where the whole ant is going could be more important.
Worse even than seeing only what the microscope sees, is extrapolating from out-of-focus images, our very own private truths. Truths that would clearly not be recognized if the images were in focus.
Worse even than that is creating whole belief systems out of those out-of-focus images and forcing others to think they are the truth by making them the dominant paradigm.
Worse still, is being absolutely sure the images ARE in both in focus and are the whole picture!
We are rapidly becoming a world that does not think there is any microscope at all.
When that happens, there is virtually no hope of ever focusing on, or seeing at all, the 1%—the real guilty parties in much of what ails the planet.
Our very own personal microscopic view of things is ALL that matters.
And God damn it—it damn well better matter to you too!
Charles Buell
All the things we assume true (but actually are not true—or at least cannot be proven) are buried fundamentally in what we bring to any discussion. Because of this we are always vulnerable to being seen as less than able to support our entire position—as well as blind to the other person’s position.
