Perspectives

by Geoffrey Hart

Previously published as: Hart, G. 2019. Perspectives. Polar Borealis 9:18-20.

I pushed a marshmallow onto my stick, passed the bag to my left, and then moved the marshmallow just above the flames. It began slowly browning.

“The thing about life—and one of the reasons I take you kids on these trips—is that everything depends on your perspective. Nothing is black and white.” All at once, the marshmallow caught fire, hot caramel smell filling the air, so I pulled it from the flames, and blew on it until the fire went out. Then I popped it in my mouth, and as the charred crust broke, burning the roof of my mouth, my tongue was flooded with that sticky sugary goodness.

“Well, except maybe marshmallows if you don’t watch what you’re doing.” A few of the kids laughed, dutifully. I put the stick down, and watched the others toasting their marshmallows with more care. Warm light limned their faces, throwing back the darkness just a little. Lesson learned.

“Here’s an example of perspective,” I continued, and took off my wedding ring. “Look at it this way,” I held the ring perfectly vertical between thumb and forefinger, and rotated my arm so everyone could get a good look, “and it’s a perfect circle. Well, a little distorted, perhaps. Life and marriage will do that to your Platonic ideals.”

“Who was Plato?”

“Story for another time. Basically an ancient Greek who thought there might be abstract, absolute forms that lie behind the reality we see with our everyday eyes.”

“There are non-everyday eyes?”

I pointed at my own eyes. “Isn’t that obvious? So while this ring is an imperfect instance of a circle, somewhere behind it lies a perfect circle that defines what the ring should be. Okay, end of side-trip; back to the ring.” I rotated the ring slowly away from the vertical without lowering my arm. “You can see that as I rotate the ring, what once appeared circular now appears to be an ellipse.”

“Ooh! Ahhh!”

“Mock as you will, oh ye of little faith. But there’s an important principle here: nothing about the ring has changed, yet everything has changed. How can that be?”

“Sleight of hand,” someone shouted from the darkness beyond the circle of firelight. Another shouted back: “He palmed a different ring.”

I smiled. “No, I’m rubbish as a magician. But look at this: if I keep turning the ring,” which I did until it was horizontal, “you’re now looking at it edge on. What does it look like now?”

“A rectangle!”

“Precisely. Circles and ellipses are like brothers and sisters. Maybe cousins. Whatever. Basically, both are round. But a rectangle? Where the hell’d that come from?”

“His sleeve! His sleeve! He palmed it again!”

I glared in the general direction of the voice. “The point I’m trying to make, if you lot didn’t keep interrupting me, is that it all depends on how you look at things—on your perspective.” I placed the ring back on my finger.

“So that’s a simple, concrete example.” The bag had returned from its circuit around the campfire, so I impaled another marshmallow and held it in the flames. “Here’s one that’s more metaphysical.” As the marshmallow again caught fire, orange flame arose from the blackening skin. “For the ring, we had a metaphorical transformation: whatever the geometric shape, the ring was still a ring. But with the marshmallow, we see solid matter vanishing, even though you’ve probably learned that mass can neither be created nor destroyed, only changed in form.”

“That’s because it’s being oxidized: the sugar combines with oxygen to become carbon dioxide.”

“Right. From the scientific perspective. But as we’ve seen with the ring, there are different perspectives, with different insights.”

“Ooh! Ahh!” This time only one voice, and his heart wasn’t really in it.

“Anyway, what I’m getting at here is that even when things seem most certain, you should always retain a measure of skepticism. Sometimes if you adopt a different perspective, you’ll see something new that you wouldn’t have imagined was there before. That’s how science works: ‘stick with what you know’ works, but scientists should still keep their mind open for the unexpected.”

“What about those who don’t want to be scientists?”

“The same principle applies in real life. For instance,” I continued, dropping my now flaming stick into the fire, “think about the people you meet every day. Think about the other members of the troop. Which one of you is going to become a scientist some day?” A few tentative hands went up. “Did any of you guess that before I asked the question?” A few heads shook: no. “Okay, how about this one: Which of you is going to become a serial killer?” Nervous laughter; one hand lifted, and I smiled at him.

“You see my point. Now, the really tough question: Which of you would believe that I would become a serial killer?” I kept my face stony just long enough for them to grow uneasy, then laughed, breaking the tension. “Me neither. But you never know, right? What’s that they always say about serial killers? He seemed like such a nice man. Lots of girlfriends. Mind you, none of them ever seemed to leave after spending the night... From one perspective, such a nice man; from another, not so much.” More nervous laughter.

“So let’s carry this logic to its conclusion: What do you see when you look at me?”

“An adult who has nothing better to do with his life than entertain a bunch of bored kids?”

“Hah hah. Latrine duty for you tomorrow.” The laughter became a little more enthusiastic. “Let me answer that for you: a middle-aged man, not yet gone grey, who loves being out in the woods. From one perspective.”

“And from another?”

“Be creative! How do you know, for instance, that if I rotated just right, like the ring, you wouldn’t see me from a completely different perspective? That I wouldn’t turn into a slimey-green-drooling-child-eating creature from some weird-ass demon dimension?” I let the drool I’d been gathering for the last several sentences drip slowly from the corner of my mouth, and there was general laughter. And then, unnoticed, I palmed the plastic lobster claw I’d purchased at the dollar store and let it fall from my sleeve, dangling in the firelight. Their screams were enthusiastic and, for some, heartfelt. Darkness, the wind passing through the trees, and rustling noises here and there in the woods make for a powerful enhancement. But also, I’m not such a rubbish magician as I’d suggested.

I yawned widely, stretching. It had been a long day. “Time for us old folks to turn in for the night. Davey, you’re on fire duty. Make sure it’s well out, like I taught you. And everyone sleep well.”

I stepped away from the fire, just enough to be half visible outside the circle of light. “Just remember,” I noted, “how you look at things is important.” Then I stepped into the darkness and went to my tent, resolutely not looking behind me to see the source of the wet slithering noises coming from around the campfire.

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