Forced Perspective

At times scrolling through social media, you may come across pictures like this:

She obviously is on roids. No human could possibly do support the leaning Tower of Pisa. Or maybe she is just being clever.

 Last time I checked, these people were not actually holding up the tower of Pisa, but rather using the photographic technique known as forced perspective.

Picture from here. I think this is far more artistic than the above.

As demonstrated by these two pictures, forced perspective is used to make objects appear bigger/smaller/closer/further away than they actually appear. It is how Hagrid is made to look bigger than the other characters in Harry Potter, and how Peter Jackson made the hobbits appear smaller than the rest of the characters in Lord of the Rings.

 

This is pretty clever, definitely worth three minutes of your time. If you have another minute, and you really want to have your mind blown/see a really trippy video on forced perspective, check out this video. 

For the past four months, with both work and personal stuff, I have been dealing with a ton of nonsense. Short list: bike broken beyond repair, almost stranded in a city where I don't speak the language, two new subjects to teach, one of which I have never studied, really large classes, got dumped when I thought I found something good (my fault, couldn't fix it, not sure if it was fixable, but I tried, no success). In reality, all of these things are shit. Nothing that really adds up to much, but without taking a step back, without perspective, it is difficult to see the bigger picture. 

So then what? Change your perspective, and everything comes into focus. The actual problems will present themselves in their actual size. Each one of the above is an easy fix (well, most of them). Bikes can be replaced, foreigners will wait while you attempt to speak their language brokenly and then respond in english, and coworkers can help you with the classes. 

I recently rediscovered the Foo Fighters. Somewhat disappointed in myself for forgetting about them in the first place, because I love every album of theirs I have. This is a really good song off of their second album, with a title that has no relation to the words of the song; for this post, it is the title that adds meaning. See this. A more applicable song is Big Me off of the first album.

Also, a fun fact about the Foo Fighters and their first album: Dave Grohl played and recorded every instrument. It wasn't until after he had recorded 15 tracks and had the album mastered that he hired two other people to be a part of the band. The debut album in its entirety can be heard here. 

I am incredibly grateful to my friends to listening to me rant about all of this shit, my brother who provides invaluable advice, my parents who guide me, my sister who puts up with me as her teacher, and my coworkers who make going to work every day good. In the words of Kevin Durant, who dedicated his MVP award to his mother, you are the real MVP(s). When you have people behind you, you can do whatever you want. I owe you all a lot of beer (except my sister. No beer for you. Maybe chocolate or something else instead).