In order to survive and thrive as a species, we must act as anthropologists towards one another and suspend our disbelief about the world view that anyone holds. Or to paraphrase Miller’s Law, we must imagine that what they are saying is true and then figure out how that truth plays out for that person. We must take their experiences seriously and indulge ourselves in empathy. Our experiences are all going to be different, and by understanding the experience of a person – who they are and how they learned to be who they are – we can reframe the experience into something that fits into a whole-world puzzle. A whole-world puzzle is how all these different clashing ideals and beliefs can fit together harmoniously.
Imagine that these different world views are laying on top of each other like sheets of transparent film with all manner of colors, writing, and illustrations on them. A light shines from underneath them. They continuously shift, and the content of the sheets change color, words, and pictures. That’s humanity. That’s our whole-world puzzle. We just have to figure out how not to block the light that comes through us, but rather to let it shine so that it may illuminate the others as well.
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