Viewpoint and Truth

I was going to work the other day when a segment about hurricanes came on the radio.  It is difficult, said the expert, to predict the intensity of a hurricane season.  That difficulty is compounded by our geographical location.  He asked those listening if we those the previous year had been a "light" or "heavy" year for hurricanes.  He predicted we would say "light" because no hurricanes struck land in the United States last year.

It was actually a heavy year, and if you lived outside the United States, you would know that. Hurricanes struck land in other countries; just not here.

Listening to that, I was struck by the idea that we often see what is happening around us only from our own perspective.  We see with narrow vision, and we think that we see with open eyes.

We need (I need) to remember that what we see if not nearly the sum total of the truth -- we may not know the truth, or we may only know a portion of the truth.  Our perspective may even create a "truth" that does not at all resemble what is real.

I wonder if we need to be less arrogant about our knowledge of the truth.