Cute Misfortunes and Zooming out

zooming out and looking at the bigger picture

Last evening, I was looking at my son crying out loud, because it was time to go to bed. I found that cute though and I smiled, while I was wondering how he could see the bigger picture. Was there a way for him to just zoom out of his misfortune?

The cute “misfortunes” of our kids

When a toddler is outraged, laying on the floor and hitting arms and legs on the ground, it may seem like the biggest disaster that could happen to the kid at that moment. But almost magically the child forgets about the situation ten minutes later.

We appreciate that crying, because it is time to go to bed, is not really an issue, however, and most probably, we have all cried for the same reasons. Now and having seen the bigger picture, we, the adults, the parents, smile only because we find it cute.

Our own misfortunes

Maybe in a similar way, God also smiles at our misfortunes; when we are struggling, when we are angry, when we are depressed and desperate. Perhaps at a higher level (one that we cannot grasp from our everyday perception), these are not really calamities or misfortunes.

Sure, there are tough periods in our lives, that we can definitely feel on our skin and deep inside our mind, but we categorize them as such only through our personal and temporal way of perceiving them. And so, God, who presumably exists in another level, smiles at our misfortunes, because he finds them cute.

Zooming in and out of pictures

To contemplate this further, consider this interesting thought experiment with a picture.

So, the other day, I was browsing through the photos on my computer and I encountered a beautiful landscape photo. I wanted to focus on a particular point at the top of the mountain and I zoomed in. Then, I zoomed in some more. And then some more, till I could only see scattered pixels, which do not make much sense on their own.

It is only when we zoom out, when we elevate our point of view, that we can see what the whole picture represents.

We are the pixels in the bigger picture

What if we, as individuals, are the pixels in a picture that we call the universe?

What if we could zoom out and discard any magnifying glass (that is, our lenses through which we see the world, our beliefs and values that we hold for people, situations, ourselves)?

It seems to me that only then, we can see how our individuality merges and collaborates with other beings and entities in the world around us.

What if we zoom out?

So, what would be the benefit, if we could see our problems from another angle? What if we could elevate our minds so high, that we would see people, animals, trees, rocks, events, not as separate, but as interdependent features of the bigger picture?

Could we recognise humanity’s issues and misfortunes then?

Would we smile too?


* In this text, by the word “God” I don’t mean any particular monotheistic God. I use that word only as something above and outside of human perception.

Cute Misfortunes and Zooming out
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