Yesterday, I came across an intriguing principle in philosophy, the idea of transperspectivism. Transperspectivism is defined as the way to seek an understanding of truth through other perspectives and traditions and incorporate them into our own.

For example, consider a Rubik’s cube; you can only see a part of the cube at a time, it could be one, two, or even up to three sides that you can see at once, but never all the six sides. Sometimes there can even be some distortion, maybe because of a magnifying glass, or a fisheye lens.

Each way of looking at the cube yields different information about it and combining different perspectives gives a complete picture of what you are looking at. You cannot truly know everything about an object from one perspective; reality itself is transperspectival, multiple perspectives need to be captured to understand it.

This philosophy transfers very well to the idea of arguments, opinions, and beliefs in real life. Oftentimes, I find myself narrowing down on one perspective about a situation when arguing about it or looking at a situation with a distorted perspective, which causes me to miss out on important information about it. I tend to forget that just like the reality of Rubik’s cube, one’s ideas, beliefs and opinions are also transperspectival.

The essence of what I have said so far is simple; remember to look at a situation from multiple perspectives and try to understand each one. It seems simple in theory however, in many cases the simple things are also those that are most overlooked. The countless number of times that we fail to remember that there is more than one dimension, one perspective, one story to reality is a reminder of the fact that even though the essence seems obvious and simple, it is easier said than done to be a person who can look at reality with a transperspective.

All of us have moments where we are blind to the other faces of our Rubik’s cube. Sometimes, we look at it through a magnifying glass and only see a part of one side. Sometimes, we look at it from afar and fail to appreciate the distinct colours on it, and sometimes, we see it from a fisheye lens and do not even realise that we are looking at a Rubik’s cube.

Remember that the next time you are trying to understand something, it could be an opinion, a theory, or an argument, before passing judgement about it, flip the Rubik’s cube around. Look at every side, look closely, then look from afar, and try to fully understand its reality; because reality is not just one perspective, it is a combination of multiple perspectives that come together to tell us the full story.