The Transcendental Perspective
Introduction
In terms of perspective, the fashion today is objectivity. Our scientific approach is a reaction to the subjectivity that had been pervasive for a long time, and in many ways still is very prevalent. The following offers a dialogue between two parts of me that take on the perspective of the subjective and the objective. This dialogue can also be thought of as an expression of the Trinity Cycle.
The objective approach is dominant these days.
The subjective has had its day and is still quite common.
The two are opposites and don't see eye to eye.
Both go to extremes.
The subjective sees only from its own point of view.
There is much narrowness and provinciality there.
And the objective view objects to that
and tries to cut out any trace of subjectivity.
It thinks it is without slant –
the purest view and closest to truth.
But what it has done is taken the slant of objectivity.
It sounds like the voice of a machine.
For a long time subjectivity held sway.
For after all, we are the ones
who are looking and talking.
We've got a vested interest to protect.
But then Galileo and Copernicus came around.
They've taken away the center
and put it somewhere else.
I can't find out where or what is the center any more.
There actually doesn't appear to be a center anywhere.
If there is one it is certainly remote from me
And I have no access to it.
Many hold on to their subjective perspective –
It gives meaning and value and perspective.
There is at least room for my own being in it.
Why would I want to give this up
for some kind of mental reality,
which is certainly more comprehensive,
but where there is no room for who I am
and I only lose myself?
On the other hand,
why should I stay behind and get stuck
in a land where I grew up but now it's time to move on?
I can get really stuck if I stay in my old place.
The world is much bigger than what I'm used to.
It's time to embrace a bigger world
It's time I grew up.
And in growing up I enter a large world,
full of things I've never seen before.
It's all too much for me to make sense of.
It doesn't hang together.
There's no center to it.
I don't see any space for me in it.
But I certainly feel much more powerful.
I can control things that were controlling me before.
Everything in the world is at my bidding.
No longer do I feel afraid of what is out there.
But I've noticed as well
that I'm becoming rather insensitive.
I no longer find my own being
in amongst the things I work with.
I've learned to be objective
I know that the world is round rather than flat.
I know that the way things appear
are not really the way they are.
My world has gotten much bigger
and I understand much more.
But it seems to me I've lost myself.
I don't know what's important to me any more.
I know what I left behind is the subjective
It was full of errors and illusions.
But there was something there that I'm missing.
It held something for which I long.
There was something in it I didn't see before.
The objective has something to offer too.
It tries to give a perspective of clarity
But it is the perspective of the machine.
It has its own slant but a silent one,
because it has the air of not having one.
It tries to give the impression of being holy.
Could it be a wolf in sheep's clothing?
I cannot find myself in it.
I have removed myself from the whole scene.
And in this elimination of myself,
what is left is a horrid creature
that claims it is a beautiful person,
because it is more comprehensive and objective.
It has no life in it.
It has removed life from itself
by eliminating the subjective.
I'm starting to think there is room for both.
I don't want to throw away what I've learned.
I can't go back to being childish again.
But I can become a child again in other ways.
There is room for both,
But not in terms of what I thought.
I've got to clean up both what I had before
And also what I've just been through.
I'll wash them with my tears
and join them both together with light.
The light I originally had will be rekindled.
It will shine like it didn’t before.
I had forgotten about it.
It got lost in the euphoria and power I had gained
in adopting the objective approach.
But the power took away my own life,
I guess I gave it away to someone else.
But now I'm taking it back again.
I've learned much in the process.
I've learned that I'm not the center of the world.
But in my own ways I am that center.
And that center has value and meaning
as long as it is kept in perspective,
the transcendental perspective.
Dirk H. Kelder
August 1999.
