You know those moments when you realize what’s really important?
A shock of tragedy or a near miss snaps you into perspective.
In those moments, you resolve to maintain this perspective all the time.
But you don’t. You can’t! No one can. The perspective is too shaped by intense emotion, which cannot be sustained.
That’s a good thing.
To function properly, we need to have a general lack of perspective most of the time. The overwhelming tragedy of the fallen world is too much, our smallness to small. The overwhelming joy of creation is too. We’d be perpetually stupefied.
Perspective is good in small bursts when we start to get warped. It’s a wonderful shock, precisely because it’s a shock.