Perspective Transposition

February 24th, 2006

Foreword:
I have always tried to explain to people how I managed to get myself out of my depressions, alone and without help from medication or therapy (I will refer to my depression as “my darkest hour” to annoy those who know a song by that name). Generally, when I begin to explain, I tend to say that mathematics got me out of it; and by that I meant, I transposed those things I couldn’t explain to myself with things I did understand. The upshot of this is that your point of view, or opinion isn’t lost; for example: When you get your downers and feel worthless. By convention there is someone there talking you out of it, telling you the opposite, and how much you matter to the world.

However, the fact never changes that when you are down and feeling worthless is because you are worthless, but in turn is probably the most honest time you will ever have. By having someone whispering lies into your ear to stop you thinking about the honesty you’re confronting, really is not productive in my point of view. By transposing it all about, to make sense of why you are worthless you begin find what you are dealing with, then you can work out how to not be whatever it is you are. Generally, this is by stop moping about and whining repeatedly about your perpetuating problems, it also tends to have a lot to do with actually looking beyond the immediate ground you’re standing upon and looking forward.

This article isn’t about how to be a positive thinker and how to achieve your goals; I merely wanted to add that foreword to this prior to going on to saying what I wanted to get across.

Article:
By convention, there are two types of thinkers: the optimist and the pessimist. You also have two points of view: left and right. Types of thinkers, albeit optimists and pessimists see the same opportunity in the same way although to their understanding, favour the odds being inclined to which ever direction they are inclined to be thinking: positive/negative. This however, is not a problem. Some prefer security over chance. Whilst neither are correct, either can correct their point of view by balancing their inclination. As stated before, when you’re in your darkest hour you tend to be the most honest with yourself. Transposing a perspective is not something you can just do at a flick-of-a-switch; it requires you to profoundly reach into your core and ignore all the complexities that have built your mindset into viewing your given opportunity they way you do, in essence, you want to adopt the eyes of a child by ignoring preferences.

I’ll digress a little to talk about something else. The thing I really wanted to chant on and on about was how saying: “I am worthless” is a statement of value… bit like saying in programming:

Personal_value = Null;

In programming, the statement of value does nothing, much like repeating to yourself how you are worthless. In fact being worthless (as a value) is a bit like starting out on a blank canvas, you have an entire surface to cover and nothing to obstruct the continuety. In a way I envy those who feel worthless it is so liberating.

I think I’m loosing the direction again. Right, let me break it down: you are worthless and you want to be worth more than nothing. This gives us a starting and ending point, the middle point is the bit you need to learn how to work out.


Personal_value = Null; //starting point
Personal_goal = "greatness"; //ending pointPersonal_value + (something) = Personal_goal;

Well if you’re a primary school kid, you may sit there looking at the problem over and over again and not figure that one out, but transpositioning is rather simple, turn things about to find the unknown; as thus:

Personal_value + (something) = Personal_goal;

Starting formulae, by subtracting both sides by the Personal_value, you’ll eliminate it from the left hand side.

Personal_value + (something) - Personal_value = Personal_goal - Personal_value;

Consequently you’ll have your answer

(something) = Personal_goal - Personal_value;

If you actually consider that Personal_value has actually a value of nothing, the goal is the (something) in the middle you couldn’t work out; there is no middle step between you and your final objective, the only thing in the way is: you, holding yourself back.

Whilst trying to write this article the idea has occured to me: that you negate whatever your preference is, and aim for the opposite. Which is somewhat nihilist (and by that I do not mean Neilist), the upshot of this is to achieve answers you’d not allow yourself to calculate following your normal mind set. Much like looking at an opportunity through the eyes of a child, you have no favour or bias to your answer except for that which seems the most logical.

It has taken me all week to finish writing this article and I am still not happy with it. However, with my shortness of concentration it is the best I could achieve.


2 Comments to “Perspective Transposition”


  1. Bjorn said:

    Nay. I read your ideas, and I thought they were interesting. Let me let you tell you how I differ in thought:

    You are not more likely to be honest withyourself when you are down. In fact I think whenever you’re swayed by emotions be they positive or negative you lose focus and are unable to make a clear picture of your situation.

    Your dichotomy of optimism vs pessism isn’t something I agree with either. It’s not that simple.

    The formula for personal worth was interesting, but I don’t think personal worth is static, nor do I think does it start as 0.


  2. a-v0id said:

    Bjorn, it was examplary; if I were to dig too deep I would loose focus on what I was trying to convey.

    The points of view are not that simple; things never are, but if you try and define whatever you’re trying to say in a 5 word answer… you get to the point better, if people don’t agree they can flag it up and ask you to be more concise.

    I find that the harsh truth of being worthless when you are depressed (in a cynical way) is completely correct. I didn’t however mean that being worthless was static… it merely is static whilst your in that cycle of repeating the same thing to yourself.

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