We quite naturally and quite appropriately presume that to live in the world, we must understand the world. We know quite well that to navigate this complicated and frequently fragile existence of ours, as well as have any hope of emerging on top in some form or another, we must understand what we’re navigating. If we don’t understand the terrain around us, and if we’re not acutely aware of the nuances both large and small that cut across it we risk not only being irreparably lost, but we also risk being d...
We quite naturally and quite appropriately presume that to live in the world, we must understand the world. We know quite well that to navigate this complicated and frequently fragile existence of ours, as well as have any hope of emerging on top in some form or another, we must understand what we’re navigating. If we don’t understand the terrain around us, and if we’re not acutely aware of the nuances both large and small that cut across it we risk not only being irreparably lost, but we also risk being destroyed in being lost. Such a perspective is certainly sound.
However, we feel that we must do far more than just understand the world that we live in. Knowledge is information, but it is not necessarily transformation. In reality, having knowledge alone is to live as nothing more than an alien with knowledge. Yet, to keep up with the world, or to get to a place where the world has to keep up with us, we have to be far more than aliens. We must throw off that which is alien and become more of that which is the world. Subsequently, our lives are bent and spent on becoming what’s around us, rather than becoming what’s within us.
What Is Within Us?
Whatever’s within us, whatever it is that we are at our core, whatever that is often takes a backseat to what we feel we should become. What we should become, or so we think, is a spitting image of the world. We rigorously cultivate this image, assuming that such an image most effectively fits the world and therefore can most effectively navigate the world. Therefore, we become what we see around us, rather than becoming what’s within us. Subsequently, what’s within us eventually becomes lost to us.
Nonetheless, there are those people who plumb the depths of their souls and press into the innermost caverns of their hearts. There are those most robust adventurers who realize that the greatest adventures of all don’t lie without, rather they lay within. There are those who have come to the priceless realization that to effectively navigate the world is not to become the world, but to become the fullest self living in the world. And these are the world-changers that we would be wise to admire, and to which we would be equally wise to aspire.
The Thoughtful Rebels
I have been munificently impacted by many such thoughtful rebels. I have seen the many who build inward-out, rather than outward-in. There are those who daily stand in the gap and create the space for others to find out who they are so they’re not told who they are. There are many who have challenged the norms, rejected the trends, stood firm when others fled, and held the line on an intruding world so that those around them could be in the world, but not of the world. There are those wisely rogue people who run against the world in order to change the world.
The Game Changers
And these are the game-changers who were birthed by those who themselves first changed the game. These are the movers and the shakers that walked in the footsteps of others who were constantly moving things and shaking what was left. These are astutely discerning people who understood the world, but differentiated themselves sufficiently from the world so as to not be shackled by norms, swayed by trends, bullied by fads, baffled by the mediocrity, and capsized by the ever-changing currents of culture, societal expectations and politics.
Many of these game-changers were game-changers because of others who refused to let them be anything else. I applaud those bold people, the fearless people, the sacrificial people who refused to bend to culture or trends so that they’re friends and children might grow into who they are, verses turning into what the world is. I can count innumerable men and women who created the space and ran interference at great cost to themselves to guide others who knew who they were, verses being children who were trying to figure out who the world was telling them that they are.
So who will we be? How will we live out our lives? Will we be what the world demands we be, or will we be what our soul invites us to be? And in making those decisions, will we look beyond ourselves to create a space for others to do the same?
Additional Resources
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