The Emergence of a New Global Culture in the Imagination Age
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Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down upon that grass, the world is too full to talk about. ~Rumi
For those who suspect that the human family is forever doomed to perpetuate a warlike state, consider how far we’ve come, and how unlimited the development of consciousness might be, should we manage to dodge doomsday before the hourglass flips on the next millennium. When, not so long ago, fire was harnessed, a word may not yet have existed to describe the joy of those who captured the first flames. Now, fires burn in virtual worlds, surrounded by “avatars” who are learning, together, to become the heroes in their own constructed narratives, living in communities made up of real people from all over the world. These worlds are immersive three-dimensional platforms in which people create representations of themselves to interact with one another. Sometimes the content of such worlds is user-created, and sometimes the scene is designed and built for a chosen purpose, such as the exploration of music.
Rather than exist as an unwitting victim of circumstance, all too often unaware of the impact of having been born in a certain place at a certain time, to parents firmly nestled within particular values and socioeconomic brackets, millions of people are creating new virtual identities and meaningful relationships with others who would have remained strangers, each isolated within their respective realities. This tectonic shift in the global economy, now in its infancy, is being sparked by people such as the Muslim woman I met during my first few weeks in the virtual world, Second Life.
There’s a reason why most people don’t bother to break ranks with tradition, which ultimately symbolizes the collective expectations of entire cultures, together with the families and individuals composing them: fear. All her life, this woman had wanted to see what happens in a Jewish synagogue, but feared the disruptive nature of taking that step. I first met her in the sanctuary during a prayer service. For the first time in recorded human history, a new global culture based on a deeper collective consciousness is emerging. People can explore one another’s belief systems fearlessly. And, just as importantly, new collective systems are being formed, based on modern needs.
For the most part, cultural revolutionaries in three-dimensional immersive platforms are ordinary people operating undercover in a way that the physical world, with its obvious indicators of race, shape, gender, age and status, refuses to allow.
When Buddhist monks in Burma were attacked by police, hundreds of avatars gathered together in Second Life, holding hands for hours, to protest. A note card appeared on my screen to inform me of the event, and when I arrived, I decided to interview as many people as I could about why they were there and what freedom means. Over three hundred people from countries including Japan, Germany, Australia, the UK, the United States, Egypt, France, Belgium, Amsterdam, Canada and Brazil were present. Many of them uploaded snapshots of the virtual event to the Commonwealth Island group pool of the photo-sharing site, flickr. One participant passed around a note card with an explanation of the Tibetan Buddhist mantra, Om Mani Padme Hum:
Think of it as a phrase which awakens compassion and loving-kindness for welfare of all beings… In English, Om Mani Padme Hum can be roughly translated to mean "the jewel in the lotus of the heart." This is a reference to the inner Buddha nature or spark of divinity within each of us.
The six syllables of the mantra are believed to purify the six negative emotions…while simultaneously engendering the six qualities of the enlightened heart - generosity, harmonious conduct, endurance, enthusiasm, concentration, and insight.
The message went on to define in depth the meaning of each syllable in the chant, and the implications of mastering those lofty ideas for the development of all humanity. In this way, whether in the form of note cards, exhibits, art, live music or other interactions, people are learning to respect the richness of what various belief systems have to offer. Most of the people in the world do not have the luxury of investigative globetrotting to get to the heart of the human condition, and even those who do rarely possess the level of vulnerability and open-mindedness necessary to engage total strangers in the kind of exchanges about cultural progress that routinely take place in virtual worlds.
Critics point out that the virtual social scene is often mundane, at best, and can be depraved, at worst, just like real life. But increasingly, I encounter individuals acting as cultural ambassadors. People sharing the specifics of their own respective circumstances can make informed decisions about which elements are worth preserving and which in their view, no longer serve the promotion of the greater good. People can construct, inhabit and enhance one another’s ideas in three dimensions. This groundbreaking development has irrevocably changed the nature of our cultural perspectives. And not a moment too soon. The challenge now, for those of us focusing on making a meaningful contribution towards collective creativity and organised action, is to apply the technology towards the inclusion of as many people as possible in this compelling dialogue.
To observe, record and decipher energy systems, including our lives, environments and the cosmos in which we exist, with greater degrees of collaborative sophistication - this is the ultimate goal of the Imagination Age. For those who understand the power of the medium, the potential for creating social change and transforming the economy as a result is unlimited. Virtual worlds are the stickiest social networks imaginable. The unique opportunity to create and manage one’s identity as a global citizen simultaneously shatters barriers while offering the perfect arena in which conflicts can be resolved creatively, through mutual, personal comprehension.
Peace is not the absence of conflict, but one’s attitude towards it. The only hope of clashing cultures is to find a common ground beyond the shackles of time and place to which each human is bound. This place is the imagination, where ideas are born. Increasingly, the delicate glass bulb of the future will be lit by a tangled filament of intertwined ideas. People from all over the globe, having been left out of the dialogue for so long, will add vital new dimensions to global unity. Like the first word of creation, spoken in the language of nature common to us all, a seemingly impossible movement taking root today in virtual worlds will catalyze a metamorphosis in the physical realm.
A new world order is forming. For those of you who want to generate life through innovation, wild international adventure (across multiple worlds including the one inhabited by our physical bodies) and savvy social interactions aimed at greater authenticity in the human experience, take note. Your time has come.
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