It has happened to all of us, at least once, to realize that things were different from what we thought. It can happen when you look at a painting.
In 1533 Hans Holbein the Younger painted The Ambassadors, in which he portrayed two illustrious men of his time. The two men are surrounded by a series of objects (books, a map of the sky and the earth) that refer to the power they possess. All the clues seem to suggest that the painting, while depicting the two men, is at the same time a way of referring to man’s power over the world. Just as we convince ourselves that we have grasped the meaning of the painting, we notice that at the feet of the ambassadors is a strange figure that we at first struggle to recognize exactly. In fact, Holbein has painted an anamorphic object that can only be seen from a certain position.
The strange object turns out to be a skull and its presence profoundly changes the meaning of the painting. Thus, we were convinced that we were dealing with a representation of the power of man, but instead we are dealing with a representation of man’s impotence in the face of death. This is exactly the opposite of our first conclusion.
The wonder that pervades us in the case of Holbein’s painting is something that can also happen in life when our expectations are overtaken by events or something new.
Being proved wrong can happen more than once. So, we ask ourselves, how do we realize that we are wrong in an assessment? How do we open our eyes?
There is a beautiful expression by Edith Stein. With regard to the search for meaning, the philosopher said that we must “look at the world with our eyes wide open”.
Not being caught unprepared by unforeseen situations means taking into account the possibility of that happening.
So, yes, we can be wrong in our assessments or choices and it should not be a drama to admit it.
Mistakes can happen, but they are more likely to happen when we are so confident that we even rule out the possibility of things being different from what we thought. This is the threshold at which a legitimate confidence turns into something else: a presumptuous superiority, more insidious the more unconscious it is.
YOD Institute 