Worldview
As our brains are developing in youth, we are secretly weaving stories to ourselves about why the world is working the way it is. In forming the stories, we pick from essentially archetypal scenarios about the hero’s journey. The hero has a quest or mission to fulfill, something or someone must be saved or stopped, something is missing that must be found, or something is causing interference that must be removed, some hardship must be overcome or peace must somehow be established. These stories become integral to what’s called our world view, and the view of the world is that it is either against us or supporting us along the way and we are either doomed or we prevail.
The interesting thing about our stories, and what makes them archetypal, is that they can go either way in interpretation. The princess is being pursued by an evil lord, which either makes her a victim or someone powerfully attractive. The destitute man is either pathetically begging or offering you an opportunity to do a good deed. Thus two friends can see the same incident or experience with entirely different slants, so that one or the other may be shaking his or head and thinking, “How can you be so blind?”
The interpretations are deeply personal and consistent. While the world looks benevolent and creative and also malicious and destructive, one’s worldview typically takes one direction over the other and then builds from there. Once a person has developed his or her worldview it becomes easier for that person to move from interpretation to creation in keeping the momentum going. If you think the world is going your way, you are better motivated to seek out positive looking experiences, for example, on the basis that life always works out for the best anyway. On the other hand, if the world is against you, there would be little hope to keep trying and continually see how bad things really are. After a time, the worldview becomes a part of a person’s identity to the point that it must be protected as a vital part of the person. For example, a potentially positive experience, one that would seriously challenge a negative person’s stance, must be sabotaged if it cannot be avoided. Thus, we sometimes meet former friends of someone who are shaken in bewilderment, wondering how their good intentions toward another could have gone so awry.
After a history of rejection in one’s early years, for example, years of experience of being shot down, ideas about abandonment become entrenched, as familiar as one’s own image in the mirror. Good experiences never feel completely true because they are a contradiction of what is held as the truth. Any attempt to change someone’s worldview from the outside is only a drop in the already poisoned bucket. The hero’s journey, in such a case, becomes the quest to change from the inside. Courage must be mustered to deconstruct, tear down, essentially, the old identity to build a new and better one, and faith must be bolstered to believe the new way is actually better and even possible. Patience must be nurtured because there will be many setbacks over time until the new ideas are established. Most importantly, while the changes are necessarily internal, the hero’s journey is best not a solitary one. A worldview is changed through experiences in the world with trusted others offering more realistic interpretations to counter the person’s old rigid view.