Paradox of Perspective

One man’s truth is another man’s lie
Three columns rising upward to the sky
No, there are four downward shafts I spy
What makes one true and the other a lie

Before you judge each other’s views
Gain a perspective from inside their shoes
Much opinion now passes as news
Study it from all angles before you choose

Each of us thinks we know what is right
Not grasping the other view is our plight
Is whether it’s three or four worth the fight
Because it’s all just an illusion to our sight

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“For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.”
– Wallace Stevens, The Snow Man.

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Linked to dVerse Poets Pub — Poetics: Beyond Meaning or The Resolution of Opposites

We should not fret if paradox seems hard to grasp (it can be slippery). The purpose of the prompt is to let the chosen line seed our own imagination – after all the paradox has been done for us already.

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“Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now” from Bob Dylan’s My Back Pages is a paradox that has always resonated with me. There have been many interpretations as to the underlying meaning of this refrain, but to me it is quite simple: In our youth we thought we knew everything. In maturity, we realize we now know much less than we thought we knew in our youth.

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One of my favorite examples of paradox, or perhaps circular logic is a better description, is Dan Fogelberg’s The Higher You Climb. Here is the first verse:

“The higher you climb,
The more that you see.
The more that you see,
The less that you know.
The less that you know,
The more that you yearn.
The more that you yearn,
The higher you climb.”