On Making the World a Better Place

From Ben White on Unsplash

One of the readers of this blog is a very long-time friend, whom I’ll call M.  M. wrote the other day with the following message:

“I just read your new post.  As long as you concentrate on the quantum stuff, you leave me in the dust.  I’m anxious for you to get to the part where you suggest how we can alter our perception to make our world a better place.”

M. has a great point. 

My emphasis on ‘the quantum stuff’ comes from a couple of places.  First, that’s my educational background.  And second, I’ve found that field of study a useful frame of reference in grasping the ideas I present in these writings.

However, if we don’t find the ideas themselves useful in enhancing the quality of life for ourselves, our loved ones, and the world at large, they’re really just another game.

So, let’s address M.’s request.  The first issue is our understanding of perception and how we might be able to alter it. 

Here’s the definition of perception as presented in Wikipedia:

Perception (from Latin perceptio 'gathering, receiving') is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment.

In our cultural understanding, the word ‘perception’ conjures the idea that there exists an environment, a real, tangible world about which we receive sensory information and which information we can use to understand that world.  All of us assume that what we’re perceiving exists pretty much as we see it.  In that sense, perception is a mostly passive process of gathering information about something that would be the way it is whether or not any of us are around to perceive it.

What might be the possibilities in altering our perception of the world in that context?  We could gather more information by working harder and longer.  We could gather better information by increasing the sophistication and accuracy of whatever methods we use to gather it.  We could gather different information by looking for other aspects of what we’re studying.  (An example of this last point would be looking out at the physical universe at different wavelengths, such as the infrared spectrum that the James Webb Telescope is designed to view.)

I would argue that we humans have been doing that more-better-different thing for quite some time now, and as M. suggests, the world still needs to be a much better place.

So, how else might we look at our world? 

How, indeed, might we alter our perception to bring into view some other approach than more-better-different?

There is a principle called Occam’s Razor, attributed to William of Occam (c. 1287-1347), which suggests that in explaining a thing no more assumptions should be made than are necessary.  This is often stated as “the simplest explanation is probably the correct one.”

The simplest alternative approach to the world’s ills is to stay out of the future, which is arguably entirely conceptual, and bring the question into the present.  If we do that, the question becomes “how do we make the world better?"  It’s interesting that you can read that question in two ways.  It’s usually heard as “how will we make the world better,” which puts us in the future again.  The other way is to assert that we are already making the world better and we’re doing it now. In that context, the question is about what we’re doing now to make the world a better place.

How are we making the world better now? 

By being authentic, by insisting on focusing our attention on the journey towards the highest good of all, by sending love to all who want and need it. All of us have the capacity to do that. But how can that possibly be enough?

I have argued consistently in my writing and speaking that we create our own reality.  When I try to explain that experience to people, I usually wind up in the quantum realm, and as I stated at the outset, I am deliberately not going there in this piece.

And yet, most of us will agree that we do have an influence on others through our vibration (read ‘mood’, ‘attitude’, or whatever sounds less technical).  Whenever we are experiencing joy and satisfaction in our lives, we uplift others.  Then, of course, there’s a multiplier effect wherein each of those we’ve uplifted proceed to uplift others.

The power of staying in the present moment is the key. 

As soon as we mentally delve into the future, we find ourselves in a place where we have no power.  There are way too many unknowns in the future to know what to do to make things better.  The entirety of our power to change things lies in the present.

Which begs the following question: what is our power to change things in the present? How does being in the present change things for the better?

From stux on Pixabay

My friend M. has what might be called a sunny disposition.  I know M. to be committed to looking at the bright side of things, both in the here-and-now and in the future.  It may be that the only thing that keeps him from knowing that he’s making all the difference he’ll ever need/be able to make is our cultural insistence on trying to change things using more-better-different. And that’s true for all of us.

Instead of relying on more-better-different, try looking at all the world’s actors as fully capable, whole, complete beings who are having a human experience. 

Like consummate actors, there are an infinitude of possible roles to play in the human drama and they all require great skill and commitment.  If you look at the world from there, you can appreciate the present moment to such a degree that you can release both the past and the future.  And then you may find that in the present, all the worry and angst vanishes.  Those concerns live in the future, which doesn’t exist except in the human mind. In the present moment, there is only love, for the world and all who play out their roles in the human drama. And it turns out that acting out of love in the present moment is enough.