How easy it is to forget we see the world from one particular perspective

My speed is sensible. Slower drivers are idiots. Faster drivers are lunatics. Conveniently, civilisation has placed the perfect speed directly beneath my right foot.

Work applies the same geometry. The founder calls customers slow because the product was obvious during its nineteenth design review. A veteran describes a process as simple while the newcomer searches for the unwritten rule everyone “just knows”. A buyer calls a price outrageous without seeing the risk and cost visible to the seller. Each person experiences a partial view as ordinary reality; everybody else appears defective.

Perspective-taking does not require the wet belief that every view is equally correct. Some drivers really are dangerous. It requires exposing the assumptions our own position supplies free of charge. Watch somebody use the product without rescuing them. State the opposing case until its owner recognises it. Ask what information, incentive or previous scar makes their response coherent. Curiosity buys more than diagnosis here, and costs less.

Agreement may remain impossible. Fine. At least the dispute can move from “What is wrong with these people?” to the evidence and trade-offs they can actually see. The road never appointed our lane as the intellectual centre, however confidently we hold the wheel.