Here is a simple question for you—when was the last time you opened up a newspaper, clicked on your news media app, or connected on to social media, and found that the front-page news story, or trending topic, was a “bad news” story?
I’m guessing that happens every single time.
In today’s interconnected, fast-paced, and increasingly globalized world, we are presented with unprecedented challenges and opportunities unseen by the generations before us. The way that we address these challenges and opportunities will shape the world for generations to come.
Whether the topic is global warming, economic downturns, or the outbreak of an infectious disease, the way in which we react to the front-page news requires thoughtful, strategic, and compassionate thinking. The ability to understand the interactions between the issues that confront our world shapes how we respond. The ability to create opportunities for progress shapes the type of future we will live in.
To think strategically and compassionately in a complex maze of information and ideas requires a skill set that that transcends academic disciplines, technical skills and professions. Today’s global-setting requires a greater understanding in all-encompassing spirituality, so that we can inform our responses to today’s challenges with meta-physical wisdom—whether they are religious, philosophical, or political.
The distinction between the skills used to navigate today’s world and the knowledge gained by meta-physical wisdoms is important to explore, as it as it forms one of the greatest ironies of our time. Despite having the most information available—ever in our collective history at our fingertips—we create our own narrow realities. Depending on the search terms we use, the friend lists we cultivate, and the algorithms that websites use to pre-determine what we would like on our screens, we are not using the information available to us because we are instinctively drawn to ideas and thoughts that are similar to our own. While we have the ability to seek to know more than any generation before us, we are continuously exposed to information and ideas that align with our own world-view. Despite the opportunities presented by today’s technology, we are using it to bolster what we think and not how we think.
Education in all-encompassing spirituality provides an insight into the world views of others, and enables an ability to think deeply and precisely about the world around us despite its complexity. In my perspective, the time of education in all-encompassing spirituality is now. If we are to turn the daily “bad news” stories into challenges to be faced and opportunities to be created, we need a society that can think deeper than the veneer that is passed off as news and information today.
I am excited by the promise that Cloverleaf holds. Given the ever-changing nature of our world today, Cloverleaf provides a space for thinkers across the globe to articulate the importance of all-encompassing spirituality. It is my hope that Cloverleaf will be accessible so that topics that are discussed in the journal are relatable and available for the broader public.