Change of Perspective

Musings on Writing, Reading, and Life Narratives

Fiction writers and literary critics speak of point of view. Social scientists are more likely to discuss perspective. But both of these terms refer to essentially the same construct: the consciousness behind the perception and narration of experience. Each individual’s point of view is unique, and point of view shapes the stories people tell to themselves and to others about themselves and their relationships with their environment. The same event narrated from two different perspectives will produce two different stories.


A change of perspective can expand our perception and reframe our thinking about our experiences. We can all benefit from an occasional change of perspective.


[Return to MetaPerspective]


Monday, July 28, 2008

Metaperspective

As I wrote in my previous post, I've been out of blogging commission for a while. During that time a couple of other bloggers have had something to say about perspective, which is, after all, the underlying subject of this blog. Here are summaries of what they had to say:

Perspective: What Are You Looking At?

Over at Quinn Creative, writer and creativity coach Quinn McDonald discusses an "Aha!" moment she had during a recent airplane trip. Photos can be an especially effective means of communicating exactly what perspective means, and Quinn offers a couple of her photos here.

7 Tips for Keeping Things in Perspective

The blog Between Us Girls offers some answers to the question "How do we keep things in perspective so that we aren't overcome with anxiety every time an obstacle shows up in our lives?"

One of the commenters added yet another way to analyze a current problem: Ask yourself "Have I ever dealt with a problem like this before?" That's very good advice, and it's precisely for answering this kind of question that journal writing can be such a valuable tool. More on that topic in a future post. . . .

Labels: ,

posted by Mary | 3:26 PM

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home