From the vantage of a bird in flight, everything looks very different than it does here on the ground. Each individual person and tree and building looks smaller, and you lose a lot of the details that you can see head on. But from above it is also easier to see patterns, how the pieces relate to each other, how everything connects.
What do you do to get a bird’s eye view on complex problems?
I too have seen some of the world from up in the sky. As a pilot, i often learned something I had not learned on the ground. Flying in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, I looked down on fields farmers had burned after harvesting grass for seed. The fields are burned to suppress fungus. After the fields are burned, they are plowed for the next crop. I learned some farmers plow in geometric patterns, only visible to pilots like myself. I wondered how someone would create that pattern for someone they might never meet, and how many other selfless things are done for others by people just like them.
It certainly helps to view a problem not only from a long distance as well as close up, but also from a number of vantage points. Birds are quite unique though, at times I wish I were one, as they can drop appropriate problem markers from the air, harnessing gravity. If you didn’t laugh, or have stopped laughing, the analogy extends to sometimes being able to solve problems “remotely” from a great distance as well as view them from a distance. Even on the surface of Mars.
It helps me to talk it over with someone else. Journaling can help as well.
I was a history major in college and took some geography classes as well. There is no other way to get a true understanding of world events. You need the historical and geographic context to properly understand these events. Reading about 3 cups of tea, Jane Austen book clubs or kite flying is not going to help you understand the political, economic and religious dynamics of what is happening there. You must go deep.