For many of us, it feels like we’ve entered unprecedented times, with change now occurring at an accelerated pace. In reflecting upon this all and putting it within the context of my life’s work, I’ve suddenly realized what we are being asked to do and how it gives this unfamiliar, epic experience a sense of familiarity to it.
What we are being asked of by life is to be the explorers and pioneers of our time, just as our parents, grandparents, and great grandparents may have been, yet within a completely different contextual realm of experience.
In effect, instead of exploring, pioneering, and settling new lands at the edge of our world around us (like my parents did taming the northern frontier of Manitoba back in the fifties), we’re being asked to explore, pioneer, and settle new “lands” at the edge of our “world“ within us.
For many of us though, this is going to be an exceedingly difficult adventure to undertake. Why? Because we aren’t even aware that these inner worlds exist and don’t understand how they fundamentally help us (and also hinder us) in perceiving our world and our very sense of self.
Therefore, until we can accept that there is a much larger “world” beyond the horizon of our conventional minds, we will continue to lack the capabilities and capacities to tackle these wicked problems which are much like dragons emerging from off the edge of the known world to wreak havoc upon it.
This is going to require us to have great courage, authenticity, and creativity going forward. That’s because we need to be real creative to openly step towards the very things we normally defensively step away from and avoid. In the process, we need to learn to drop our shields, armour, and masked helms, giving us the mobility and broader vision to make possible what previously seemed impossible.
In effect, the way forward isn’t about trying to know everything, having the certainty that we know all of the answers. Rather it’s about being comfortable with not knowing everything and embracing the uncertainty of the unknown by asking the right questions. In doing so, our questions become quests that lead us on an adventure within a wilderness that we truly want to step into and explore, pulled along by something much greater than ourselves.