Website owner:  James Miller

Stand off from a thing --- get away from it --- the key to perspective and understanding

        


   Stand off from something --- get a distance away from it --- 
   and you start seeing it with perspective.  Very often one can 
   benefit a great deal by getting away from something for a 
   while; by getting it out of your mind, forgetting about it.  
   Then suddenly you see it with perspective.  How long do you 
   need to be away from it?  How much time is necessary?  In my 
   experience you have to be away from it for several years (maybe 
   2 or 3 years).  But after several years you start seeing it 
   with perspective, understanding and insight.  You start seeing 
   it as a whole, its salient features, general tendencies, 
   general inclinations, errors, weaknesses, problems that it 
   causes, etc..  What are some examples from my own experiences?  
   What things have I stood away from and then started seeing with 
   much greater perspective and clarity? 

      - conservative Baptistism
      - Pentecostalism
      - Evangelicalism in general
      - the teachings of the Bible (I discontinued my habit of 
         daily Bible reading.  It had become a thing of rote, 
         motions, just reading words.  I wasn't reading it with 
         perspective, appreciating it, understanding it.  By 
         discontinuing reading it, by backing off from it, I have 
         been able to see it with better perspective.  Now when I 
         read it, it is with freshness and better understanding.) 
      - my complexes and emotional problems of the past (by 
         getting away from problems you see them with better 
         perspective) 
      - Mathematics and technical subjects (by getting away from 
         them one gets a better perspective on their true 
         importance and value; one sees them in their proper 
         place, as compared with other things)  


   Oct 1977