The big picture by Jason Silva

“There’s a great anecdote about the very first photograph taken of earth from the vantage point of space.

The idea was that this photograph occasioned a profound shift in the understanding of ourselves.

You see, for the first time in human history we could look back at our planet in its entirety and see the big picture.

This provided an ontological awakening, it changed our story, our narrative, it upgraded our self-image and expand our consciousness, new maps for new realities as they say.

Astronauts in orbit call this experience the overview effect.

A boundary-shattering sense of revelation and global interconnectedness where we shake off our petty differences and emerge with a sense of global responsibility, global consciousness, and global citizenship.

Carl sagan’s famous “Pale Blue Dot” film echoed this same idea.

From the vantage point of space, there are no lines dividing nations, no geographic subdivisions, no flags or racial divides or disputed territory.

There is only earth, a single celestial body teaming with life, the womb in which we dwell.

Yet the fact is our historically myopic view, most certainly our limited perspective has resulted in much animosity.

We have all too often organized ourselves into competing hostile tribes subjugating each other for land and resources and misrepresenting the big picture into a story of borders, subdivisions, and dividing lines.

Too much hostility and not enough empathy and compassion.

Cultural differences, religion, tribes, nation, race, these are created expressions and variations that should and could be celebrated.

Instead, they have become symbols that are all too often used to create suffocating boundaries.

They are increasingly ill-conceived to address the challenges of a hyper-connected global world.

As advancements in technology and information enable greater mobility of ideas goods and people, the role of the physical boundary has shifted and due for an upgrade.

Conflicts remain and too many people are restricted access to the increasingly fluid means of migration, transportation, and movement.

Migration has always been a defining factor of the human experience.

Migration has and continues to touch all nations, cultures, and regions, all peoples on the planet.

Migration has been the seed at the heart of thriving societies accelerating the dissemination of knowledge and ideas.

Restricting migration is ultimately like restricting the flow of ideas and much the same way that we don’t tolerate censorship or book-burning we might consider the ways in which restricting the free movement of people can be equally punishing to the idea of human flourishing.

The desire to become a global citizen is human, we all have it and we all share the same goals for safety comfort and prosperity for our families.

Some are fortunate enough to be able to invest in a second residence and citizenship while others are forced to seek asylum for their survival.

Being a global citizen is also about the strong and the wealthy helping the weak and the poor.

As we saw with the global citizen tax initiative, border disputes, conflict zones, armed borders, these are things that persist and need to be addressed.

We need a new story, a new lens with which to address these inconsistencies we need to scale up to unleash a truly global citizenry.

Exchanging ideas, beliefs, goods, and services.

It has been said that empathy rarely extends beyond our line of sight and so perhaps it is by extending our gaze using marvelous new storytelling tools like virtual reality that we can bridge divisions and bring worlds together ushering a form of radical empathy, to see the other as ourselves, where boundaries are dissolved and compassion reigns supreme.

A massive transformation of consciousness a software upgrade for mankind birthing a new kind. ”

– Jason Silva