It’s 2015, we’re well into the 21st century, and we are at a point in human history where many of us are experiencing a criss-cross of perspectives from not from different roles we play in our life, and not just different people we encounter in our life, but from different locations around the planet, and from across all time periods of human history.
This rapid increase in the number of contrasting perspectives on science, spirituality, history, politics, culture, and business that we experience has been happening for well over a decade (i.e. since the Web became mainstream).
So…where do we stand? How have we evolved since the proliferation of the Web?
Well, not much in my opinion, at least in terms of our ability to process conflicting points-of-view…at least on the surface. Our perspectives I find still tend to be highly protected and fairly narrow.
That said, deep inside of us, I find many of us are going through a radical collective process of integrating not just one, not just two, but dozens, and even hundreds, of contradictory, conflicting points-of-view into our being.
I feel I’ve made some headway in my lifetime, as integrating perspectives has been a life focus for me. However, I feel there are large swaths of our population for whom the concept of integrating conflicting perspectives is new, novel, and sudden…yet has become an inescapable responsibility at this point in their lives.
Basically, whatever we’ve held onto for so long, including many of our seemingly evolved or elevated points-of-view, no longer hold water or explain enough.
How do we experience this?
By and large, this is experienced as trauma.
When we are compelled within our being to reconcile two or more conflicting perspectives, we go through what is a traumatic experience in integrating them, as neither one of these perspectives is sufficient or sustainable.
We are in a no-man’s zone, where we are left to our own devices to figure out what to make of this contradiction.
To further complicate matters, what a reconciled perspective actually looks like or feels like is simply an unknown as well.
We simply don’t have enough evolved institutions that have the maturity to actively integrate conflicting points-of-view.
This is the current challenge of humanity. How do we resolve contradictory perspectives in our life?
How do we enable teacher and student, soldier and victim, low caste and high caste, Asian and African, oppressor and resistor, masculine and feminine, humble and bold, introvert and extrovert, proactive and reserved, US citizen and Indian citizen, conservative and liberal, hedonist and spiritualist — how do contradictory perspectives fit together?
And not just in a politically correct way, and not just in a logical framework way, but how do they reconcile within our body and soul, in line with our unique purpose and trajectory? and in line with the unique time and challenges of rapid, exponential social change and human evolution?
Finding an answer to this question, I believe, is the challenge of our times.
Ranjeeth Thunga
rkt@perspectivemapper.com