Three dimentional perspective

I think sometimes my mind is confused as to when I am awake and when I am asleep. It always seems to want to get thoughtful late at night, as I am trying to go to sleep. And when a thought gets to rolling around in my brain, it won't let go.

Last night I was thinking about perspective and comprehension. We've all heard the phrase that something "isn't one sided" or about looking at something from another perspective. I am definitely a big fan of examining things from multiple perspectives. I think that even when I don't agree with a point of view, just being exposed to it deepens my understanding of my own stance on it.

I don't think it's possible to really understand something from just one point of view. I think that concepts are at least three dimensional, and that a single point of view lets you see, at the very most, half of something. Imagine, for a moment, a regular six sided dice. If you look at it, the most you can see, at any one time is three of the faces. But you might only see one, if you are looking square on one of the faces.

With two perspectives, you might have seen the whole of a thing, but you won't have the context to understand how the two halves fit together. To think about the dice again, if the first time you see the sides that have the one, two and three dots on them, and the second time you see the sides with dots four, five and six, you still don't know if the three is next to the four. You have all the information, but without the context, without that other perspective that shows you how the bits you have seen fit together, you still don't have a full idea.

The more ways you can look at a thing, the deeper the understanding you have for it. Reading one book, listening to one person or even doing something one way...these all give you experience, but they don't give you full understanding. Every time you read something different about the same subject, speak to someone new or learn a new way of doing something you already know how to do, it makes your comprehension of the thing just a bit more complete.

I don't think we can ever achieve absolute understanding of a thing. I think there are always more perspectives out there. I don't think I will ever be 'done' learning anything, no matter how basic. I am constantly finding new ways to think of things I thought I knew. New twists that make something I previously learned seem a bit different. Sometimes it takes two or three new thoughts before the first thought makes sense. Sometimes a new thought will completely shatter my understanding of a thing and instead of thinking I was looking at a six sided dice, I now realize my dice has 12 sides.

It can be a pain sometimes to slog through one more 'beginner' book. To read one more website about tarot cards. Or listen to one more person ramble on a forum about how they visualize. But those gems of understanding, those moments that change the way you understand the world around you...those are worth working to uncover.