We under­stand the world through sto­ries. The ones we tell influ­ence how we per­ceive our place in the world. Soci­etal gaze has long been fix­at­ed on our destruc­tive impuls­es and we are in dire need of an alter­na­tive narrative.

“Every gen­er­a­tion throws a hero up the pop charts. Med­i­cine is mag­i­cal and mag­i­cal is art.” — Paul Simon, “The Boy in the Bubble”

Ever since The Sopra­nos ran on HBO in the 1990s, the anti-hero has become the default arche­type in pop­u­lar enter­tai­ment. Yet, as the col­lec­tive con­scious­ness evolves beyond this neg­a­tive trope, depic­tions of pos­i­tive hero­ics can offer new, com­pelling visions of uplift­ing social and emo­tion­al arcs.

All forms of sto­ry­telling can help shape our under­stand­ing of the nature of real­i­ty. The sto­ries we tell one anoth­er encap­su­late our val­ues and beliefs. Sto­ries help us make sense of life and steer deci­sion-mak­ing. Cul­tur­al nar­ra­tives cre­ate bonds between those who grow up with them, like a silent agree­ment of how the world functions.

Sto­ry­telling offers a way of con­nect­ing one’s own jour­ney to the expe­ri­ences of oth­ers who have come before and will come after. The clos­er one lives to the nat­ur­al world, the more con­nect­ed that individual’s nar­ra­tive will be to the time­less rhythms of the cos­mos. We believe that liv­ing in greater har­mo­ny with our envi­ron­ments and shar­ing sto­ries with­in our com­mu­ni­ties, can help to strength­en one’s feel­ing of pur­pose in life. While telling sto­ries is nec­es­sary for shap­ing our own per­spec­tives around the mean­ing of our own lives, lis­ten­ing to the sto­ries of oth­ers is vital for gain­ing a deep­er under­stand­ing of our rela­tion­ships with the out­side world. Recon­nect­ing with the wealth of ancient wis­dom and rit­u­als allows us to bet­ter access the essen­tial truths that mod­ern soci­ety may have forgotten.

When you turn on today’s news you see cat­a­stro­phe after cat­a­stro­phe. Rather than ampli­fy that bad news, we believe in the trans­for­ma­tion­al pow­er of sto­ries that gal­va­nize the ener­getic force of pos­i­tive nar­ra­tives. Sto­ries can con­vey heal­ing properties.

In the Far North area of Kalaal­lit Nunaat, Green­land, Inu­it Elder Angaan­gaq Angakko­r­suaq inte­grates sto­ry­telling with the tra­di­tion­al heal­ing prac­tices his fam­i­ly has shared across gen­er­a­tions by way of oral tra­di­tions. This act of trans­fer­ring sto­ry is deeply root­ed in the bonds and wis­dom of a com­mu­ni­ty that has been able to sur­vive one of the harsh­est envi­ron­ments on Earth for thou­sands of years. The spir­i­tu­al task his moth­er impart­ed was to “Melt the ice in the heart of man”.¹ Through sem­i­nars, talks, gath­er­ings, tra­di­tion­al sweat lodge cer­e­monies, and shaman­ic heal­ing, Angaan­gaq ­Angakkorsuaq’s teach­ings instruct young and old alike. Angaan­gaq Angakko­r­suaq reveals how sto­ry can tran­scend gen­er­a­tional and geo­graph­ic bound­aries, as well as bridge a sense of sep­a­ra­tion we may feel from our own fam­i­ly of origin.

“The great­est dis­tance in the exis­tence of Man is not from here to there nor from there to here. Nay, the great­est dis­tance in the exis­tence of Man is from his mind to his heart. Unless he con­quers that dis­tance he can nev­er learn to soar like an eagle and real­ize his own immen­si­ty with­in.” — Angaan­gaq Angakkorsuaq

The sto­ries we tell in the future will no doubt be linked to the sto­ries from our past. Every­thing that hap­pens becomes part of the great sto­ry of our uni­verse. Sto­ries embody the imag­i­na­tion, mem­o­ry, and dreams of all life. But sto­ries can also be path­ways to new modes of think­ing. Sto­ries can cre­ate mod­els of behav­ior to be emu­lat­ed at a mas­sive scale and they can push the enve­lope of our indi­vid­ual and col­lec­tive expectations.

Immer­sive media that tell inter­ac­tive sto­ries in three-dimen­sion­al space like mixed real­i­ty, vir­tu­al real­i­ty, or pro­jec­tion-map­ping, can help an audi­ence feel more involved in the sto­ry being told. Reac­tions to these immer­sive media can become incred­i­bly vis­cer­al, and help unlock emo­tions that might oth­er­wise be more dif­fi­cult to access. Immer­sive media can also repli­cate synesthesia—the con­di­tion of asso­ci­at­ing dif­fer­ent sens­es, such as a col­or with a sound—and, in doing so, this form of media can sim­u­late the expe­ri­ence of an altered state of per­cep­tion. Adding new tech­nol­o­gy to this equation—like hap­tic fea­tures or scent and cli­mate inputs—can fur­ther cre­ate entire­ly new sen­so­r­i­al expe­ri­ences. As we set out to find our way through these new fields of cre­ative expres­sion, we should con­tin­u­al­ly return to our roots of sto­ry­telling to guide our intentions.

The sto­ries we need in greater cir­cu­la­tion con­cern time­less tropes of love and adven­ture along with glob­al social jus­tice, envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty, and inno­va­tion through quan­tum inge­nu­ity. Sto­ry­telling con­tin­ues to be our pri­ma­ry vehi­cle for envi­sion­ing futur­is­tic and prob­a­bilis­tic dimen­sions of our ever-chang­ing reality.

Great things hap­pen when giv­en due time to prop­er­ly devel­op. Go slow as nec­es­sary. Pos­i­tive change takes time.

“In life there are no solu­tions, there are forces in motion; cre­ate them and the solu­tions will fol­low.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Heal­ing is a slow, del­i­cate process. It can be nour­ished, but not forced. Same goes for build­ing mus­cle. Exer­cise helps exist­ing mus­cle tis­sues break down so they can then rebuild more robust­ly. Just as devel­op­ing new mus­cle requires pain and strug­gle, so too does expand­ing col­lec­tive con­scious­ness through­out society.

Change is dif­fi­cult and uncom­fort­able. A slow process mit­i­gates that pain. Humans have two cog­ni­tive func­tions: fast and slow. Our fast sys­tem is auto­mat­ic. Intu­ition and impulse kick into gear to help us avoid sit­u­a­tions that feel dan­ger­ous or to iden­ti­fy sit­u­a­tions that feel ben­e­fi­cial to engage in. Yet, we need a slow­er, ana­lyt­i­cal process to fig­ure out the nuances of our next steps. The slow sys­tem employs rea­son. It’s also fact-based and com­pul­sive­ly thought­ful. Going slow takes work. But the ben­e­fit of slow think­ing is that it checks and bal­ances our often biased and incor­rect think­ing.²

When we slow down our think­ing, we not only keep our­selves safer from error, but we also cre­ate ide­al con­di­tions for cre­ativ­i­ty. And when we are still enough to sleep we acti­vate our fun­da­men­tal mech­a­nism for home­osta­sis (sta­ble equi­lib­ri­um). Many tra­di­tions incor­po­rate rest. From the sies­ta to the sab­bath, entire val­ue sys­tems are devot­ed to hon­or­ing the impor­tance of stop­ping work to rest.

Rest­ful prac­tices, like mind­ful­ness and med­i­ta­tion, are use­ful for a vari­ety of health ben­e­fits. Inten­tion­al­ly slow­ing down phys­i­cal activ­i­ty and enabling immer­sion into the mind, allows the brain’s waves to go slow as well. Brain waves are the result of syn­chro­nized elec­tri­cal activ­i­ty caused by bil­lions of neu­rons in our brains com­mu­ni­cat­ing en masse. Our brain waves con­trol our state of con­scious­ness and mood. Alpha brain­waves occur in the fre­quen­cy range of 8 to 13 Hz and become more abun­dant dur­ing mind­ful­ness or med­i­ta­tive states. In more prag­mat­ic terms, alpha waves are also asso­ci­at­ed with reduc­ing depres­sion and increas­ing cre­ativ­i­ty.³

We even learn when we sleep. In our deep­er states of Delta and Theta-wave sleep, our men­tal activ­i­ty is actu­al­ly best set for mem­o­ry.⁴ We can look to enhance our self-learn­ing by set­ting one­self up to con­tin­ue the lessons of the day over lengthy hours of sleep.

So rest the body. Rest the mind. Rest from stress. Focus on what’s most impor­tant, and for the moment, take a rest from all the rest.

Times may be tough, but opti­mism will win the day. Cul­ti­vat­ing opti­mism will help see us through cyn­i­cism and the threats of a loom­ing dark age.

Cyn­i­cism is easy. Spend five min­utes check­ing the day’s news and you may well con­clude that cyn­i­cism is the most appro­pri­ate response to glob­al instances of cor­rup­tion, pol­lu­tion, and cru­el­ty. Any­one who argues that human nature is innate­ly nasty has a pletho­ra of evi­dence to use in their favor. A defeatist atti­tude might be tempt­ing, espe­cial­ly when the alter­na­tive, opti­mism, can be frankly exhaust­ing to uphold.

It is extreme­ly tir­ing to hold high expec­ta­tions that are repeat­ed­ly beat­en down. The act of striv­ing for some­thing makes us vul­ner­a­ble to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of defeat. Yet, there is strength in vulnerability.

Despite the stren­u­ous path required by opti­mism, only through dif­fi­cult exer­tion can worth­while gains be made. The cyn­ic might appre­ci­ate the com­fort of often being proven right, but this kind of vic­to­ry leaves no last­ing mean­ing. Instead, we believe in build­ing a con­struc­tive lega­cy. To this effect, opti­mism remains the only viable atti­tude for build­ing a bet­ter future.

To do bet­ter in life, it is nec­es­sary to first believe that improve­ment is pos­si­ble. We must have the desire to cre­ate the con­di­tions in which joy may flour­ish, and this cir­cum­stance must be dri­ven by an uncon­di­tion­al love for human­i­ty. We may crit­i­cize our cur­rent states of mod­ern soci­ety, but only as a means for chal­leng­ing our­selves to do bet­ter. A mis­an­thrope might make some astute obser­va­tions, but has no real chance of mak­ing actu­al improve­ments in the world. Opti­mists must first accept real­i­ty, and then demand more from what is pos­si­ble. In fact, a rig­or­ous under­stand­ing of the more unpleas­ant real­i­ties of the world is required in order to devel­op an ana­lyt­i­cal frame­work that can seek to actu­al­ly address these issues.

Each phase of his­to­ry has its own unique con­text and speci­fici­ties. Com­par­isons can often con­fuse facts. For instance, we don’t need to fool our­selves into believ­ing a blan­ket state­ment about how glob­al eco­nom­ic con­di­tions are all around bet­ter than they once were. As anthro­pol­o­gist Dr. Jason Hick­el point­ed out dur­ing his dis­cus­sion with Nima Shi­razi and Adam John­son titled, “The Neolib­er­al Opti­mism Indus­try”, in Novem­ber of 2018, “the per capi­ta income gap between the Glob­al North and the Glob­al South has tripled since 1960.”⁵ While it’s impor­tant to be opti­mistic that unjust con­di­tions can improve with the right mix of activism and pol­i­cy, it’s cru­cial we all work to gain a clear­er under­stand­ing of why cer­tain con­di­tions exist as they do. Most of all, we must not be sat­is­fied with over­sim­pli­fied con­jec­tures from peo­ple at the top of the eco­nom­ic totem that allow self-con­grat­u­la­tions for phil­an­thropic efforts. Phil­an­thropy is impor­tant, but what’s even more impor­tant is rebuild­ing a glob­al eco­nom­ic sys­tem that sup­plies a fair dis­tri­b­u­tion of wealth through­out all stra­ta of society.

Rather than debate whether or not con­di­tions are bet­ter than they once were, we must exam­ine whether con­di­tions are as good as we can pos­si­bly make them. That ques­tion can form a guid­ing mantra for any project seek­ing col­lec­tive improve­ment: “Are things as good as they could be? And, more sig­nif­i­cant­ly, what do we need to do to ensure that con­di­tions are as ben­e­fi­cial as pos­si­ble?” These are the ques­tions we believe are essen­tial for craft­ing a pos­i­tive meta-par­a­digm for sys­temic change. We envi­sion a future in which areas like health­care and edu­ca­tion, are not mat­ters of indus­try with win­ners and losers, but rather birthrights in which every­one can participate.