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Perspective
The universe is wider than our views of it. HENRY DAVID THOREAU, WALDEN
American transcendentalist Henry Thoreau’s observation, made from his cabin retreat near Concord, Massachusetts, remains as true today as when Walden was published in 1854. We cannot possibly understand the whole of the universe, from one viewpoint. The thought is echoed in the 1989 film Dead Poets Society, when teacher John Keating, played by Robin Williams, quotes Thoreau as he climbs onto the desk in front of his bemused class, adding ‘I stand upon my desk to remind myself that we must constantly look at things in a different way.’
And while Thoreau was quite right about the universe, he was also right at a smaller scale. We cannot understand much at all ...
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