Perspective

Facts, alternative facts, statistics and what have you all vie for our attention daily, be it on the television, newspapers, the internet or right in front of our eyes. We try and make sense of all of this, more often than not believing anything that seems sensible to us and instantly transforming it into established truth, forgetting that we arrive there through perspective - what seems true and correct to me does not necessarily click with you, or the next person.

Many things in life are almost entirely a matter of perspective, including interpretation of historical fact, current events or the future. Our background, personal experiences and beliefs shape our understanding of life, of everything we see, read, hear about and, therefore, our interpretation of everything. This is not a black and white process by any means, even for events unfolding right in front of our eyes, as plenty of research has shown - no, you cannot trust in any absolute way even what you think you see with your own eyes! Interpretation is constantly at work, all the time, and that is always affected by perspective.

History is constantly reinterpreted using a different perspective, usually to suit a purpose and press a claim, however unrealistic or ridiculous. Take the wonderfully absurd claim by much-admired President Erdogan of Turkey concerning the Aegean islands (slightly paraphrasing): "They belonged to us before, so they don't belong to Greece, they should be ours by right." This sounds eminently sensible until you consider that the perspective changes completely if you shift to another point in time, when the Ottoman Turks were still in the depths of the steppes of Asia, yet to embellish world history with their influence and significance - to whom did modern day Turkey belong then and what claims should they have today? And then how far back in time are we willing to go and whose claim can we unearth?

The equally highly revered President Trump of the USA, in the past known as The Donald, has another method to affect your perspective - he interprets events for you, imposing his own preferred version of things on anyone who is willing to accept it. Throughout the centuries dishpots (thank you, P.G. Wodehouse!) have always used this technique, and The Donald is an aspiring despot if ever there was one; it is up to the American people whether his aspirations remain as such or become reality, a thought that fills me with terror sometimes.

Very little in life, indeed in our world, is clear-cut, hardly anything is black-and-white, almost nothing has but one interpretation. My perspective is not de facto your perspective and your truth is not necessarily my truth, as The Donald demonstrates on an almost daily basis, which should not cause a crisis of faith but rather a reaffirmation not to take anything at face value just because it's convenient. And that is much easier said than done.