Have you ever read something that just pops? Like, you are amazed that you’ve never seen this concept explained in this way, and you’re a little miffed that you haven’t done it yourself? Or is that just me?
I’m asking because I recently had an experience like that, and I’d like to share it with you, since I think it has meaning.
So I’m getting into Umberto Eco’s Baudolino, still in the first few pages, and this clutch of sentences made me think:
But Niketas was curious by nature. He loved to listen to the stories of others, and not only concerning things unknown to him. Even things he had seen with his own eyes, when someone recounted them to him, seemed to unfold from another point of view, as if he was standing on top of one of those mountains in ikons, and could see the stones as the apostles on the mountains saw them, and not as the faithful observer did, from below.
Let me unpack what I find worthy of explanation here. First, we learn something about Niketas: he is inherently curious, which can go a few ways. Is he simply obsessed with vacuuming up information so that he can use it for some practical purpose later, or is he a seeker in search of some elusive truth? Curiosity is a fantastic weakness to have, because it can compel one to connect with others, to ask questions and listen. Or it can turn every idle chat into an interrogation or result in a cold hunger for facts, which is my way of saying that we need to watch out, because even the finest virtue can become a vice.
What I really love is Eco’s framing of Niketas listening to stories he has already heard, or witnessed himself, because a big part of my job is learning about events that, at times, I have already heard about. And I can affirm that it is amazing to see how the “same old story” sounds completely different when you hear it from a different voice. Things that were front-and-center in the “original” are brushed aside as irrelevant, and previously unshared details take center stage. And you get real insight into people by appreciating what they notice and what they don’t, what they find valuable and what they don’t.
And, yes, the perspective of the narrator makes a big difference, which is why Eco’s line about seeing the stones as the mountaintop apostles saw them, from above, and no longer just as the faithful looking up do, resonated with me so much. And what could be gained by shifting our perspective from the mountaintop to beneath? Hearing about an issue from someone, and then getting a perspective from their supervisor, or their supervisor’s supervisor, adds a whole other dimension. The same could be said for stepping off the mountain and appreciating how different things can look from the flatlands.
Of course, we don’t always have the option of hearing the story from all sides. What can we do, except curse our misfortune?
For one, when we tell the story to ourselves, we can think critically. Anytime I am building a narrative in my head and I feel that the story stacks together just a little too seamlessly, that I’m too much the perfect hero or pitiable victim, a silent alarm goes off: is this really the whole story? Is there another perspective that I’m missing? If my whole tale hangs on me being supernaturally savvy and everyone else being a dolt, maybe I’m not seeing the whole story. Maybe, for that matter, I am the dolt in this situation. To me, just when things start seeming entirely clear, I start to worry that I’m not seeing anything clearly at all.
That alarm might be enough to carry us to our next option, which is to imagine those other perspectives when we don’t have direct knowledge of them. This requires some thinking. If I was standing on the other side of the room, what might I see? How about if I was completely outside the room? Above it? Below it?
Third, we can talk to people, asking them what they are seeing and what they aren’t. Even when we don’t gain any “practical” knowledge or any information that we can use in any way, there is joy to be found in seeing the world through someone else’s eyes, even if just for a while. At least I hope so, because I have committed myself to reading a pretty substantial novel about an adventurer’s 12 century wanderings, a condition in which I am extremely unlikely to find myself. And yet I’m enjoying the book, both for the quality of the prose and my own attempts to understand why a 20th century Italian author put the story together as he did.
By listening, even to things we think we know, we open ourselves up to new perspectives and possibly new truths.
Of course, listening can present challenges. Listen too critically, and we risk discounting everything we hear that does not validate our preconceived understanding. Listen without any judgment, and we accept anything that comes out of another person’s mouth—or TikTok channel—as both true and worthy of our attention. This, most people would agree, is a critical error. The difficulty lies in where to be critical and where not to.
And unfortunately, there is no readymade rubric that will tell us what to accept and what to reject, which perspectives have value and which do not. Unless….
Imagine Niketas’s ikons, with their apostles peering down from the mountains. When we see the world from their point of view, we don’t have to accept that this is the world as it really is, or should be—simply that this is how one person sees things. And we can appreciate that, looking up, our vantage point is one of several, which doesn’t diminish our perspective. In fact, seeing ourselves from other eyes might illuminate our perspective, help us understand things just a bit better.
So until next time, expect the unexpected, stay informed, and I’ll stay informal.
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