Triangulation

The transit of Venus this week taught me quite a few lessons.  I learned that in 1716, Sir Edmund Halley tried to measure the distance between Earth and Venus by using the transit.  Captain James Cook was sent to a far off land, Tahiti, which was literally the end of the flat earth at that time.  They surmised that by observing the transit from two separate locations and compiling their data, they would be able to finally put to rest some of the time's greatest questions.  Although in theory their ideas were correct, pesky things like crappy equipment, Venus' shifty outline, and foggy conditions put a damper on their success.  About a hundred years later, after the invention of the still camera, when the transit of Venus happened again, the experiment worked.  


Disclaimer: I am not a historian, mathematician, or astronomer, so if any part of my story is inaccurate, I own it.  Call it literary license.  And please don't rain on my parade by correcting me.  Read on and see why...


There is a phenomenon known as parallax.  It's best demonstrated by extending your hand in front of you with one finger upright, against a definitive backdrop.  Look at your finger against the backdrop with both eyes open.  Then close or cover one eye and see where your finger is in relation to the backdrop.  Then cover the other and see your finger shift positions against the backdrop without your finger moving at all.  You can gain all sorts of information from these measurements -- how far your eyes are from one another, how far to the finger, how far to the backdrop.  At least as I understand it, you can.  In theory.  Although as previously stated, math's not my strong suit, so I'm not sure I could personally figure the true measurements.  


To me these lessons this week were all about the shifting nature of relationships and perspective.  I sat in a room full of people, people I've known for a while, people I've never met, people who have been good friends to me.  I sat there and watched the shifting geometry of souls.  I felt like Halley and his failed experiment.  I could have gauged the distance between bodies, but not the distance of the interior lives of the people in the room.  I knew some married people sat next to each other, but were miles apart.  Other sat apart as strangers although the trappings of their friendship were deep and proven. 


And it was only that second.  Then it shifted.  There were children in the room, growing my the millisecond.  No longer how tall they were yesterday.  We were all growing -- growing older, growing wiser, growing up.  Hopefully, some of us were being reborn -- growing younger, growing more undone, growing in appreciation.


So measurements of bodies can only delineate one aspect of relationship.  It's not an effective means to delve deeper.  


But triangulation can be used in the soft sciences, too.  We can study and learn about many aspects of one subject and see what this holistic approach adds to our knowledge base about a single phenomenon.  It lends to the veracity of theories and outcomes if a subject is double or triple checked this way.  It allows not only greater understanding, but more reliable results. 


And then there's me.  I realized this week, I'm the person who sits with both her eyes open.  And take what I see as being there as it is.  I forget to sit still and close one eye to see the situation from a little different perspective.  I forget to sit still longer and close the other eye to see from even another perspective.  I forget that measuring distances between bodies is only one tool in whole arsenal of life's toolkit.  And I forget the fleeting, almost inconsequential, nature of those measurements.  For today the arrangements of yesterday are a thing of the past.