What's your angle?

Have you ever had someone say something so profound to you that it permanently effects your way of thinking? It could be the most minute of statement, but it just strikes you as so bold. On this particular occasion, a long time acquaintance of mine, Keith stumbled upon me early in the morning, both of us still up from the night before at a music festival. His greeting was brief and to the point: “What’s your angle?” He questioned me knowingly.

“What an amazing way to skip through the bullshit,” I thought to myself. Why bother to bog things down with meaningless small talk in this type of situation?

It’s an unspoken presumption that everyone is working some type of angle. Whether you’d like to admit it or not, anytime you engage someone in conversation or call them on the phone, you have some premeditated motive that you plan on revealing at some point. In this particular instance, he knew given the circumstances, any person still functioning at this hour was either trying to buy something, sell something, or get down on something not legal to discuss. What I was getting into at the time didn’t matter. Frankly, I couldn’t even tell you what I was getting into at that time. What mattered was how deeply what he said hit me. I knew exactly what he intended when he asked it of me, but it struck me on so many levels.

Every conscious being sees the world as his or her own angle. At no moment is my view on a situation the same as any other person who witnesses that point in time. Everyone operates within the universe from a different perspective. Its amazing that two people could even relate to one another while knowing this fact. Yet everyday, the billions of people on this planet all share the common experience that makes up life. At this very moment there could be someone on the opposite side of the globe experiencing life exactly as I am right now.

Between me and that person stand millions of people whose interactions between one another shape the world. Our lives are beautifully intertwined so much so that the life we are living has been experienced over and over throughout the history of time and no matter if you’re living in Phoenix, Arizona in the year 2011 or Jakarta, Indonesia in 1884, we all share the same angle on the world as we know it.