For the more "long-term" tourists, i.e. exchange students, one of the biggest attractions about spending a year abroad (yes, besides getting away from weekly chores), is the opportunity to experience another culture; to see what another part of the world is like and how it differs from your own. Because, as most of us know, when you go to a foreign country, many things change; everything from the respect between the youth and adults, to the way the students go about solving their math problems.
But whatever type of "tourist" we may be in our lives, traveling gives us views into other cultures. It gives us perspective. This perspective, the learning of how other regions of the world work in contrast to our own, is one of the most important things we can do for ourselves in our quest to better understand everything in the world we encounter, and what lies beyond or beneath it all. We can look for perspective in just about every experience, quotidian or profound.
In day-to-day life, one way perspective can be inordinately helpful is by understanding statistics. Many of you are probably aware that a large part of the statistics we hear are strongly biased to the extent that they mislead us. Look no further than Benjamin Disraeli's quote, "There are three types of lies in the world: lies, damned lies, and statistics." This is normally because the company that is producing the statistic is also selling us the product. Therefore, by way of nature, they are going to find a way to tilt their statistic to highlight their product. For example: in the world of investing, there mutual fund companies who will gladly boast to you that their funds rose an impressive 15% in the past year. Now, this statistic might be a perfectly fine number, except for when you consider the fact that the market averages rose over 20%, and therefore, this fund actually under-performed the market and your money would be much better off somewhere else. The unfortunate thing is that this type of statistic abuse is rampant. One of the best ways to safeguard against it (and save your money) is to be aware of the perspective of the statistic; know who's providing the statistic, and compare it to the norms, the big picture, the `market averages.' Understand the perspective of the statistic so as not to be suckered by it. Look at its context. Understanding context, or the realm of perspective, of what we hear can be equally important as well in understanding quotes or statements from various personages. Quotes and statements, which are in a sense the verbal forms of statistics, can be equally misleading as statistics if their context, or their perspective, is not understood. For example, Abraham Lincoln's quote, "People are as happy as they make their minds up to be," appears at first a noble proclamation of the ability of our own will to determine our happiness. However, when one considers that Lincoln actually suffered from serious depression throughout his life, the quote takes on an entirely different significance. Is this quote now a profound revelation of Lincoln's, and the key in overcoming his depression? Or is it sarcastic over-simplification of the solution to his life-long problem ("If the solution was really that simple, don't you think I would've heeded my own advice already?") In this case, knowing the context sheds light on the true nature of this quote and what it could signify. The perspective of what we hear and read, therefore, becomes just as important as the quote or statement itself.
Apart from interpreting whatever we may be fed, be it statistics or quotes, understanding the perspective in what we do from day to day in our lives, in areas such as school has relevance as well. In school, when we were taught the method for writing essays, normally we learned that it was best to use an outline to organize all the components of our argument, to put them in perspective. In another sense, it's good to put what you're doing in school in perspective as well. For example, when that occasional dismal test grade comes along, it is important to know that in 20 years it's highly unlikely that this test is going to have any significance at all on your life. Speaking of school and the importance of things in life in general and the more profound virtues of perspective, the study of philosophy is in large part a class in perspective. While the value of philosophy has never really rested in establishing empirical truths which concern man and the universe (for the question of if we can ever really think without prejudices has never been fully answered), philosophy's greatest value is, arguably, simply the practice of philosophical thinking: the examination of life, and examination in particular in a state outside or above our normal understandings, a higher state of consciousness to use Buddhism, a new perspective. In history, philosophers from Socrates to Sartre have been regarded as those who have had the most profound insights or understandings of humanity. The value of the process of examining life has certainly not lost its value throughout the centuries, and if anything gained some. Today, enterprises, when looking for future employees among recent college graduates, have now started looking for, not economics or sociology majors, but philosophy majors. Here, having that philosophical perspective is even realized by companies in the marketing of their goods to the people.
And so again, and again, we can see the value perspective has in the various areas of our lives. So, look at the big picture to comprehend the significance. Use the context to find the true intent. Keep this all in mind while on your exchange, and while you battle through any diverse situations you may encounter. And if nothing else, you can buy a panoramic camera.