Standing Too Close to an Elephant

An individual human eye has about 135 degrees field of view (FOV) horizontally, and 200 degrees vertically. This vision is named monocular. When both eyes are combined, they can cover about 120 degrees. We call this binocular vision. Unlike most fish which have extremely good monocular vision enabling them to see objects from almost every angle, our mammalian eyes are far more restricted.

Granted, if an elephant is put 1 meter from our eyes, chances are we don't actually 'see' the elephant. An animal that big can easily occupy our whole FOV in such distance. Without any context, we would not be able to tell what we are looking at. All we can see from that point of view is this grey, hairy, rough and crinkled skin. A penis-like skin, if you will.

Our initial reaction to being put in a situation like that would often be confused and enraged. Nobody likes to be put in such situation where the first thought in your mind is having male genitalia in front of you. In order to actually see the elephant, you have to take a few steps back. Once you start to see the shape of the elephant, the rest will just click in your mind, and you realize that what you thought of initially was wrong.

How many times have we been confronted with an issue, and our first reaction is to completely disagree? With the way we consume media nowadays, news and statements like that are just daily occurrences. As we get older, we realize that there is ALWAYS more to the story.

Also as we get older, we realized that our initial reaction is often wrong, but more often incomplete. Because of the limited information we were presented beforehand, our emotional attachment to the issue has clouded our judgment and ultimately our reaction.

It is important to realize that this is a mistake, but it is not one we can always avoid. What we can do is to learn from it, so when the problem presents itself in the future once again, we now know what not to do. Upon realizing this mistake are we able to take that step back, away from just scraping the surface of the story.

As we begin to see the full view of it, we can appreciate the beauty (or the ugliness) of the issue, with much more insight. Reading about the issue, asking people who actually knows about the issue and looking from other perspectives are the tools we may use in 'stepping back'.

So no matter what the issue is, and how close the penis-like object is put in front of our eyes, remember to take that step back. Your initial reaction is based on what you feel, but your final judgment should always be based on what you have learnt.

So maybe in order for us to move forward, the first thing we need to do, is to take a step back.

Written by:

Muhammad Fikri bin Halim