Need Perspective? Get to Higher Ground

How elevation broadens our horizons

The Columbia River Gorge. Photo by Elena Kuchko on Unsplash

Near my house in Southwest Washington, there’s a trail that climbs a ridge overlooking the Columbia River Gorge. Emerging from a tunnel of fir and pine, you walk out onto a cliff. The view hits you all at once. You feel the bigness of sky. Eagles, falcons, hawks, and other birds of prey are circling below. The sun glints off the glassy surface of the river. In the distance, dozens of cows are like little raisins on a giant green blanket. When the wind sweeps through the canyon, it’s almost as if you could lift your arms and hitch a ride, floating off toward the horizon like a dandelion seed.

What happens when we look out over vast expanses of land and water? By what magic does the outside get in, causing us to feel expansive ourselves? The work of psychologist James J. Gibson may offer a clue. Central to his work is the concept of “affordances.” In his book, The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception, he writes: “The affordances of the environment are what it offers the animal, what it provides or furnishes, either for good or ill.”

For example, when I see a chair, I perceive right away its physical properties such as height, width, depth, color and so on. Additionally, and perhaps primarily, I see a place to sit. The chair affords me the possibility of sitting. That information about the possibility for action, Gibson argues, is built directly into perception itself.

Affordances are unusual in that they arise between the environment and observer, belonging fully to neither. Gibson puts it this way:

An affordance cuts across the dichotomy of subjective-objective and helps us to understand its inadequacy. It is equally a fact of the environment and a fact of behavior. It is both physical and psychical, yet neither. An affordance points both ways, to the environment and to the observer.

To bring this down to earth: when I look into my refrigerator, the possibility of making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich depends on several factors:

1. My knowledge of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
2. My mental and physical ability to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich
3. Peanut butter
4. Jelly
5. Bread

In the absence of any one of these things, the possibility of making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich does not exist. This is because the affordance emerges in the relationship between them.

Why do we perceive the world primarily in terms of affordances, according to Gibson? From an evolutionary perspective, how an organism can functionally interact with an agent, object or space is the most important information in its perceptual field. The same goes for how an agent, object or space could potentially hinder or harm an organism. Pragmatism is primary.

Returning now to our vista above the river, what do we see? What does that panorama afford us nomadic creatures but the possibility of going great distances? In that snap of euphoria at the top of a ridge or mountain peak, it’s as if the land herself were speaking: “No matter what, you have the freedom to go far away from here. The world is big. You can always begin again.” We hear this in our bones. It’s enfolded into our perception as seamlessly as shape, color, sound and scent.

We spend most of our time in human-scale spaces: homes, cars, streets, parking lots, buildings and so on. Ascending into the sky jolts us awake. We remember that the world is much bigger than we had taken it to be. In looking out on all the places we could go, we are reminded of all the places we could go in life. We see more possible versions of ourselves, more freedom to be and become. The world opens up and we expand with it.

What other affordances does elevation offer? We can see further in space, which means we can also see further in time. If other bands of humans are moving towards us, we will have prior knowledge of their arrival and can make adequate preparations. Likewise for a storm bringing rain, snow, or high-speed winds. We can also see migrations of bison, elk, or deer and chart our course toward them. With foresight, then, comes a certain sense of security.

Freedom on the one hand and security on the other: we directly apprehend them when and because we embody them in the landscape. This embodied knowing is, in a quite literal sense, a gift from the land to us. It is the gift of perspective. So next time you need it — and we all need it from time to time — simply move to higher ground.