How on earth did we get here….?
Thoughts on the division of a nation
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing or rightdoing there is a field – I’ll meet you there - ”
The truth is out there – but it’s not at the extremes – it’s in the bolder conversations we choose to have
It seems that more than any other time in recent history we are being polarised, and encouraged to take extreme views. You’re either for us or against us or against us is the cry and woe betide anyone who is against. In my experience the world just isn’t that black or white. But it’s easier and requires less energy and effort to take a position where we can sit in our sense of righteousness and everyone else’s wrongness. Even the quote at the start of this article will create extremes. Those who bother to dig a bit deeper will discover that Rumi was a 13th Century Persian poet and Muslim scholar. This will be enough for some to decry anything he had to say and for others it will make him absolutely right. And it’s this approach to the way we see the world that starts to create the divisions.
I’ve spent the last 20 years working with 1000’s of people from all over the world and I’ve experienced very little that is absolutely right or wrong. I have found a lot of grey in between though. And it’s in that grey where we often find the magic. Magic that’s not a bland, vanilla compromise – but magic that comes from true exploration, disagreement and understanding.
Polarising positions…
Every now and then we find a scenario that captures us on a national or global scale. Take Brexit – the topic that’s polarising the UK right now. From some perspectives, your vote to leave or remain puts into shade every other thing that you say or believe. You’re encouraged to take a position and label yourself – are you leave or remain? In some quarters your answer to this question will either make your opinion a work of genius or render you incapable of rational thought. Neither of these is helpful or true.
Rumi’s quote about wrongdoing and rightdoing – irrespective of who he prayed to and what he believed - is a powerful interruption to our current situation. It calls us to go beyond ideas of who’s wrong and who’s right and asks us to meet in that field beyond, the field where we can explore, create, disagree – yes disagree, that’s ok too – and try to find a way through. When we take those qualities into the area between wrong and right we start find we have more in common, that our ultimate hopes, dreams and desires are more aligned. That the people who have a different point of view to us often want the same things and are coming at it from a different place.
There’s much we agree on and the extremes are a small part of the whole. There is possibility in between these positions if we look for it but when we stay out on the extremes there’s no way to move forward. When we come from righteousness there’s no room for conversation and understanding, we can only smite the unbeliever. And people voted in the Brexit referendum based on a whole host of experiences and for a multitude of reasons – and most of us have no real idea if those things will be addressed by the way we voted.
The rigidity of righteousness…
But once we’ve taken a position our righteousness creates a rigidity that can’t be questioned. We can’t be challenged and we won’t engage in conversation and that in turn creates division which leads to fear, anger, aggression and ultimately conflict. History shows us that these things rarely get us what we want. They’re the last resort and they scare the hell out of me.
The polarising choice of leave or remain applies a fatally simplistic binary choice to an issue that is far more complex. And that binary choice pushes us to the extremes. It pushes us into a place where even suggesting Rumi’s field is seen as weakness when the opposite is true. It takes strength and courage to meet in the field. It’s in this field where we can find understanding and potentially, a sustainable answer. And it’s in this field where we can find possibility. To do this requires us to drop the points of view that we cling to and defend so hard, so hard that we can even forget why we got there in the first place, and start to have a conversation.
Common connections…
When you sit down with other people who have no idea of your history and you start to share your hopes, your dreams, your experiences and your stories – once you start to tell them and they listen, you’ll find they want to know more, and then it’s a conversation. A bolder conversation that’s just beginning. And this leads to opportunities and possibilities that were maybe unimaginable before.
When you cling to your ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing it closes down the conversation, removes possibility, creates division and ultimately leads to an inevitable and damaging conflict.
The choice is ours and the field is waiting….I’ll meet you there.