Truth is not a monument carved in stone. It bends, stretches, and folds itself around the lives we live and the histories we inherit. Too often, we mistake being right for knowing the truth. We plant our feet firmly on the ground, unaware that someone else is standing just as firmly on a different map—one drawn by experiences we’ve never endured and pains we’ve never carried.

Consider the American Civil Rights Movement. For some in the 1960s, marches led by Martin Luther King Jr. were seen as disruptive, even dangerous. For others, they were lifelines—a desperate claim to dignity and justice. The difference wasn’t just political; it was experiential. Those untouched by segregation viewed the system as tolerable, even natural. Those crushed under its weight understood it as intolerable and dehumanizing. Truth, in that moment, depended on where you stood.

History offers countless examples of this. In South Africa, Nelson Mandela emerged from 27 years in prison not with vengeance but with a perspective that stunned the world. He spoke often about how prison taught him to see through the eyes of his oppressors—not to excuse their actions, but to understand the fears and insecurities that drove them. His truth was not about erasing differences but about expanding the circle of humanity wide enough to contain them.

Philosophers have long wrestled with this dynamic. Aristotle’s idea of phronesis—practical wisdom—suggested that knowing what is right requires understanding the context, the people, and the stakes involved. Existentialists like Camus, reflecting on the absurdity of war, argued that truth is forged in the tension between suffering and meaning-making. And in many African philosophies, such as Ubuntu, truth is relational: “I am because we are.” No single perspective is sufficient on its own; clarity emerges through community.

Sociology and psychology reinforce these insights. Our minds are riddled with biases—confirmation bias, cultural bias, and moral licensing—that convince us our view is the view. Research in social neuroscience shows that empathy can disrupt these patterns by rewiring our brain’s responses to difference. Perspective-taking literally changes neural pathways, allowing us to process others’ experiences not as abstract stories but as extensions of our own.

Even personal stories illustrate this. A man loses his job and feels betrayed by a system he believed was fair. Years later, he becomes a mentor to young people navigating unemployment, realizing that his suffering taught him patience and purpose he never valued before. A woman, once hardened by grief, travels to another country and sees her pain mirrored in strangers whose lives are entirely different from hers. These moments are not just anecdotes; they are shifts in geometry, where the lines of one person’s map suddenly intersect with another’s.

Truth, then, is not a possession. It is a relationship—a living dialogue between self and other, past and present, thought and feeling. Perspective does not erase conviction, but it humbles it. It asks us to see not only through our own eyes but through the eyes of those we might never fully understand.

Perhaps this is why Mandela’s words still resonate: “If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.” Perspective does not change everything at once, but it changes us—and that is often enough to begin reshaping the world.

By : Jide Adesina
All rights reserved
August, 2025