Awakening of the Verse Jumpers

Old Worldviews Crumble to Make Way for a New One

In the Land of Echo Chambers

It would be so easy to be a cult leader today.

If someone were willing, they could plug themselves into one of the many echo chambers. Then all they had to do would be to say what people want to hear, and take the “gospel” to its extremes, being more hardcore about it than the others, shaming those who don’t follow along and praising those who do. 

Photo by Paul Schellekens on Unsplash

I’ve been so frustrated with echo chambers - silos of people online or in-person who only want to associate with people like them, who think the same thoughts and say the same words. Who slander those on the “outside” who have different ways of viewing the world. 

These fear bubbles may start as safe spaces, but they seem to reinforce some kind of fundamental discontent. That discontent is expressed in countless ways, but it amounts to “something is wrong, and we know the way to fix it.” It’s how any religion, post-mystical phase, starts. It’s how cults start. 

Of course, this is a universal human experience. We feel deeply that THIS isn’t the way things should be. That we need something to make living better - something internal or external. We seek and chase. We avoid what hurts us. 

It’s normal. So, in that sense, an echo chamber is just a manifestation of our seeking mechanism combined with our tribal mechanism. It’s only amplified and reinforced by the internet. 

And I think that’s the real issue, the internet has been conditioning us MASSIVELY. I think more than we realize. We imagine we’re free thinkers who only use the internet as a tool, who get annoyed by those pesky ads, but generally ignore them. Who know there are algorithms, but are mostly content with the idea that the algorithms are mostly just feeding us what we already want, so what’s the REAL harm in that? And if we wanted something different, all we have to do is search for it, right? 

We aren’t always aware, in the moment or even in retrospect, of the many, many ways we are being programmed by these algorithms and the nature of the internet today. We choose a direction, sure, but we often take for granted the ideal of being a multidimensional human being. That’s what the modern (or postmodern) age is about, right? Not being stuck in a box, not closed in, able to bend and flex and jump into different “realities.” It’s versatility. Many modern, city-dwelling people scoff at “regressive” ways of thinking, and the core of why they do is because these worldviews are considered frozen in time, unable to adapt, dogmatic, and ignorant of other ways of seeing. 

Ironically, so many of us modern, city-dwellers are doing exactly that. We’re stuck in worldviews that are limited, that feel right and true, yet are completely closed off from other people outside of those views. We see the outsiders as “sinners,” as bad people or crazy people. We see the in-group as the good ones. We get defensive when people challenge us or point out our blindspots. Sometimes, the crowd forms with their pitchforks and torches to punish the heretic.

How little we have fundamentally changed over the millennia. How arrogant we are to assume we’re so different, or that being in a certain political party makes us better people and invulnerable to mob mentality.

And how arrogant of me to assume that the internet would overall enlighten us instead of also playing into our human weaknesses. Because that’s why I’m upset, right? Because I had expectations we were better than this? Or, maybe, a deep fear that we weren’t…?

50 Shades of Utopia

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The ultimate concern is that, yes, we do obliterate ourselves and possibly much life on Earth. But, in truth, I’d actually prefer that to an extreme dictatorship that controls all of our lives and has us living like zombies. I’d rather be dead. (And now I feel like an asshole, because don’t I care about the other organisms on this planet?)

And all of this is catastrophizing. We have no idea what will happen. And even if scenarios like these were to happen, I have no control over any of it. Why worry about it? The only thing I can do is to live my role the best I can.

Humans will do what humans will do. If humans want to live in their own echo chambers, why can’t I just accept that? If humans blow each other up…well, why can’t I just accept that? Morbid? Why is it morbid to accept something I cannot control?

I think one of the problems is so many of us think we CAN have control over the unpredictable events going on in the world. We even think we can have control over human nature. We’re fooling ourselves, and unnecessarily so. It’s causing us way more stress than it’s worth.

There’s something almost masochistic about it, because a deep part of ourselves HAS to know we don’t have that kind of control. 

For myself, I really let sink in stories about people who seemed to make a huge impact around them - Gandhi, MLK Jr., Steve Jobs, Alexander the Great, Thomas Edison, and so forth. I wanted to be like them and change the world. I took in ideas that truly anything is possible. I swallowed The Secret, but swallowed motivational speakers and teachings before that. Ever since I was really young, I was fascinated by magic and the paranormal, and the idea I could have influence on the world around me with just my mind.

There’s some truth to all of this, but it doesn’t work necessarily the way it’s taught. It seems the real secret is in letting go, not in striving to get something. 

I continued consuming ideas about how to make a difference in the world. I read self-help, psychology, and studies on social change. I wanted to crack the code on how I could make the world a better place. I dreamed up visions, inspired by forward thinkers, of an advanced society living in harmony with nature, that was truly equal and brought out the best in each person, that gave everyone a fair opportunity and the same quality of education, that was less corporate and more interdependent, less “governmental” and more “parental,” and that bridged the divide between spirituality and science so that medicine, technology, and our ways of relating to each other and the world could expand more than they ever have before. This was my Utopia.

I wanted to become a serial entrepreneur, angel investor, and philanthropist so I could see this world become a reality. 

I had this deep need for control, one that first manifested for me as a desire to have power over others, but that evolved into wanting to change the world for the better. I thought this evolution was a good sign - which it was - but I was blind to how the need for control was still built into it. I wanted the world to be according to MY vision. 

And then I met my soulmate, who taught me that trying to make waves by controlling things and playing by the rules of the system just perpetuates the system. The real system being a worldview, an approach to life. He taught me in a roundabout, skillful way that really let the seeds he planted in me sprout. My mind changed through the way he loved me, the movies we watched together, the music he shared, and his overall story. 

A Worldview of Worldviews?

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It’s in story, art, and love that our worldviews change. And it is our worldview as a society that is in need of change more so than our external systems. When the worldview changes, the systems will inevitably change on their own. 

We often adopt worldviews out of a need for acceptance, a desire for connection. When these are challenged, it feels like a threat in part because they threaten to disconnect us from our people. If we start having different ideas from them, will they ostracize us? Will we be alone? 

But the worldview that has been holding our society together thus far isn’t working. It’s not in alignment with our souls. Some are cognizant of this and some aren’t, but most of us feel the discontent, and our systems are increasingly failing. We’re in need of a new worldview.

Instead, we’re being offered old worldviews that didn’t work in the past, repackaged as new ones. Such as Marxism and Postmodernism repackaged as Critical Theory (and subsequently hijacked by capitalist trends). This worldview is competing with other outdated worldviews, such as Christian fundamentalism (sometimes repackaged as eschatological New Ageism). 

Or another way to look at it is a deep trust in our academic and governmental institutions butts heads with a deep trust in tradition and capitalism. In other words, we’re ALL holding onto the old, but about half of us have convinced ourselves we’re progressive. And neither side is able to see its blindspots, because it refuses to connect with the other side and to self-reflect. 

What is the new worldview that will actually help us? Well, we don’t know it fully yet. As Charles Eisenstein wisely points out, we have to discover it. Worldviews that bind society are born from the Collective Unconscious. And how do we most engage with the Collective Unconscious? Through myth and drama. Through story. Through art. Through mystical experience and intuition. Through dreams. Even through crisis. 

I think we saw a glimpse of it with the movie Everything Everywhere All At Once, which whispered to us the need to take multiple perspectives, yet to do so from a place of love and connection, not of escape. When we have access to these various viewpoints, we become more adaptable and resourceful, and we lose our nihilism when we can do this with others. It’s a lonely place right now to have this ability - so few are doing it - but our tribe of Verse Jumpers is emerging, and we won’t be alone anymore.