I've found that a few lines of perspective can often be foundational. People are more important than things. Some people are more important to me than other people. Being cut off by some jerk in traffic is not more important than a very excited teenage son who wants to share his excitement.

When once I aspired to learn how to draw, I was taught a few useful things. Not only useful for drawing, but things that turned out to be useful for thinking and understanding. Did you know that the mark of the pencil or pen is used to subtract light? The paper starts out white, and every line or mark covers some of it. You can't add light to a drawing--you can only remove it.

Before you put lines down, it's useful to have an image in mind. Not only an image of what it is you hope to draw, but how big it will be and how far away. You might consider what else will be in the picture and how they relate to the object of your drawing. All these things beg for some kind of framework. This brings us to lines of perspective.

When I draw the lines of perspective concerning my family, my career, my child--maybe we'll throw in my favorite music CD that my son left on the dashboard, when he parked in the sun--you see where I'm going now. Don't you?

I was recently given an occasion to put my exercise of perspective into practice. My seventeen year-old son decided to become a volunteer fireman. This is not what I had in mind for him during his junior year in high school. He graduated with 100 hours of training in fire fighting and emergency response, and he spends most of his waking hours at the firehouse waiting for a "run." Not what I had in mind for his summer vacation. He now puts himself in harms way for no compensation. Not what I had in mind for his safety.

He loves every minute of it. He wants to share every moment--when he's around long enough. I'm sure that the universal acclaim of fire fighters, since the World Trade Center tragedy, is his motivation. The whole thing scares me spit-less. I'm in conflict between my role as a parent and my role as a citizen. On one hand, I want to make sure my teenage son outlives me, and on the other I'd like to know that there are fully staffed emergency services ready to respond. But, it's more than simply: if not my son then whose?

I mentioned the 9-11 attack earlier, and that is one line of perspective. I think, hyperbole not withstanding, that our society really has changed. We are more vulnerable now, no matter where we live. If the world is a more dangerous place, then we will have to make accommodations in our lives. It's not just a matter of waiting longer in airports or checking our briefcases at high-rise office buildings--it is necessary for more of us to be willing to put our lives on the line. My son has offered me a chance to see what that means, close up and personal.

It's a new perspective for me, and a wider view than I might have had before.