Weaving our Worlds

 




In his book Reality Is Not What It Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity the physicist Carlo Rovelli writes:

“I believe that in order to understand reality, we have to keep in mind that reality is this network of relations, of reciprocal information, that weaves the world.  We slice up the reality surrounding us into objects.  But reality is not made up of discrete objects.  It is a variable flux.  Think of an ocean wave. Where does a wave finish?  Where does it begin? …. A living organism is a system that continually re-forms itself in order to remain itself, interacting ceaselessly with the external world….The nature of a man is not his internal structure but the network of personal, familial, and social interactions within which he exists….As humans, we are that which others know of us, that which we know of ourselves, and that which others know about our knowledge.  We are complex nodes in a rich web of reciprocal information.” (Rovelli, 2018, p. 256-257)


In other words, we are the stories that we tell ourselves and each other.  


In her book Context Changes Everything: How Constraints Create Coherence the philosopher Alicia Juarrero uses principles from complexity science to build a theory of constraints that explains the manifestation and persistence of complex physical, biological, and human systems.  Juarrero’s examples unfold much like Rovelli’s to describe inter-related networks emerging through the coherent flow of information. Juarrero names the human capacity to co-create our natural world, and she advises:  

“We must pay attention to what we pay attention to; to which options we facilitate and promote and which we impede and discard.  We must pay particular attention to what we do…Facilitating the emergence and preservation of a thoroughgoing resilience that affords to both the natural and human worlds the conditions not only to persist but especially to evolve and thrive is the most pressing moral imperative facing humankind today.” (Juarrero, 2023, p. 237). 

In other words, we are responsible for the stories we tell and how they shape the worlds within and around us because we have the co-creative capacity to use story to promote the conditions for widespread thriving.

In the United States we are beginning another season of presidential campaigning – 18 months of storytelling by politicians, journalists, and fellow citizens about the current state of our nation and where we are headed.  Some might argue that the term ‘storytelling’ trivializes political narratives or calls into question the veracity of story and storyteller.  I think what the term ‘storytelling’ offers on a paper plate of transparency is that humans are meaning-makers.  Using stories – formal and informal stories, grand and basic stories, well-crafted and poorly constructed stories - we weave together information from the past and present into manageable chunks, reducing the informational burden that is part and parcel of being alive as a human.  We are storytellers.

What do our politicians’ stories tell us about them?  about us?  about what is true?  about what is possible? about what is essential?  What stories do we tell each other about political leadership and governance?  What stories can we create and circulate to facilitate the emergence of widespread thriving?


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