Neuroscience and Stick People
Why neuroscience and stick people drawings can change the world
There’s a real heaviness around us at the moment, with stories of some very difficult things happening in the world: war, human rights violations, economic downturn and dysfunctional people in positions of power. The narratives amongst us are increasingly bleak, with themes of hopelessness, powerlessness, misery and despair. It’s easy to get weighed down by these narratives and lost in the stories we’re told; there are things happening in the world which are not OK.
The power of imagination
Albert Einstein once said “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” At difficult periods in history, like this we’re currently experiencing, this statement seems rather pertinent. We may not have knowledge of how to solve all our problems, but each and every one of us has a powerful tool at our disposal – our imaginations and our ability to create narratives.
Over the course of our evolution, we humans have formed increasingly large social groups. With this growth, we’ve developed more sophisticated ways of communicating, culminating (so far) in the development of spoken language. As our social groups became larger and our language more sophisticated, our brains also changed. We’ve evolved with incredible brains which are capable of abstract thinking and imagination. Our prefrontal cortex is responsible for our executive functioning skills – things like decision-making, problem-solving, self-control and planning. It’s this part of our brains which gives us the ability to imagine different possibilities; it’s this part of our brains which gives us the power to imagine different lives for ourselves and to bring these narratives into reality.
We humans are all storytellers. We’re constantly creating narratives as we move through life, using words to make sense of our experiences, whether that be internally in the form of an inner monologue, or externally to communicate and connect with others. However, this seemingly innocuous behaviour has profound and far-reaching consequences, because our lives are fundamentally shaped by the stories we tell ourselves. We get lost in our stories, convinced that they are our reality, indeed, our stories become our reality, limiting how we see things, shaping the ways in which we think and what we think our options are. In turn, these stories shape our institutions, the systems and organisations in our societies, indeed our cultures and societies themselves.
Each and every one of us has the power to imagine different realities, different lives and different stories about how the world might be. It would make sense then, that we use the power of our brains and our imaginations to focus on how we’d like the world to be. It would make sense that we use our storytelling skills to create new narratives, rather than perpetuating our current stories:
If we want to create a better world, we need to imagine what a better world would look like, because when we imagine a different reality, we can change the stories we’re telling ourselves; we can move away from narratives of powerlessness and despair, to stories of hope and possibility. Imagine a world where kindness and compassion were the cornerstones of our societies, where respect and tolerance were the bywords we lived by, where solutions to our problems were found with transparency and equity – this is a socially just world, an ‘I’m OK, you’re OK’ world.
We can use the positions on the OK Corral in the same way we might use a map and compass, to afford us a bigger picture of where we are and a greater understanding of how we lose our way in our narratives.
By holding ‘I’m OK, you’re OK’ as our healthiest way of existing, we can imagine new realities for ourselves and create new narratives. If we imagine a different future and start taking small steps in that direction, we can make that future a reality. Imagine what could happen if lots of people all started taking small steps in the same direction – each and every one of us could play our part in bringing about positive social change.
What would an ‘I’m OK, you’re OK’ world look like for you? Get in touch, we’d love to hear your thoughts.
