A Mason's Work

Something I found really useful in helping deconstruct some of my own sort of mental hang-ups or what have you is the value of first, second and third person perspectives.

Now, for those of you that don't remember what they are, first person is the eye experience, the the subjective experience of eye, the person.

Second person perspective is like having a conversation with someone else. There's me and other and we can interact.

And third person is very much like an overhead view of different interacting, you know, any of these are organisms or what have you.

So in video game parlance, which is, you know, one of my favorite things.

The first person shooters are the ones where you're running around and you're shooting stuff as that character.

The second person stuff is like the RPGs where you're having a conversation and it's all the stories revealed through those conversations.

And then a third person perspective is that overhead view where you're able to see all of the objects and interactions.

We have those perspectives and can hold those perspectives internally in our mind.

So when you are looking at a problem you're trying to solve or you're just kind of living every day life, some people default to different perspectives.

I, for example, tend to default to the third person perspective. I am kind of constantly analyzing my behavior in the moment at the moment from that 30,000 foot view.

Some people really sit in that second person where they are the sort of interactive set of voices in their head.

And they're talking to each other and kind of assessing things out.

And then there are some further still that are in that kind of first person lock in all the time where they are not really analyzing their behavior.

They're not really sort of having that internal dialogue as much as just perpetually writing in the experience of the moment.

There's a sort of implied level of impulsivity there.

The benefits of understanding these perspectives and learning how and when to shift between them are really a really great.

So for example, you really don't get a ton of benefit from sitting in that third person analysis phase at a concert.

You really want to be in that first person kind of enjoying the whole experience.

Same things true in that second person sort of me and other type dialogue.

That conversational stuff works well when you are able to separate concepts or ideas and try and have interactions to understand the relationship from a kind of two subjects communicating with each other perspective.

When you start to look through the sort of challenges that you face in everyday life.

Taking the sort of opposite or a divergent perspective from the one you normally use will help you get around problems a lot more easily.

So for example, you are like me, you regularly travel kind of in that third person perpetual systemic analysis phase or sort of view.

When you're confronted by somebody who's living in that first person kind of everything, it's all feeling all the time.

You might find that you need to move into a first person perspective to better understand the kinds of things that people in your life are feeling.

You imagine yourself in that exact scenario, you kind of understand the inputs and outputs of your physiology and those models.

You start to role play as if you're experiencing those things directly and all of a sudden that third person analysis now has the benefits of some additional texture.

The same thing is true sort of moving from that third person to second person where you can start to have those conversations between concepts and ideas.

And this model of moving through first, second and third person perspectives to help you get a better grip on perhaps some of your challenges or hangups is one that you can also use conversationally with other people.

So you can say listen, you know, I know that my behavior right now doesn't make sense. I was kind of in the moment at the moment.

I need to find a better way to triage my activities when I'm in that kind of first person mode so that I don't make critical errors that either hurt you or hurt others or what have you.

And again, you're going to get better enabled to have conversations externally and internally with your own sort of hangups and concepts by being able to switch between these so take these perspectives and give them a try and let me know what you think.