Originally published by Katya Andresen on LinkedIn: Navigating the Parallel Universe That's in Your Office
It's always been fascinating to me that two people can experience the exact same situation in entirely different ways. They emerge from a shared set of events telling stories so at odds that it's as if they inhabit parallel universes.
I was a history major in college, and it's no surprise to me that Herodotus, the father of history, was also called the father of lies. There is no one version of reality that we all recall or inhabit. There are many. Perhaps even an infinite number. As a journalist, I encountered this challenge each day. I see it in my office today. And it's starkly evident in our current political climate.
The wonderful memorist Mary Karr dramatically illustrates this phenomenon in her writing classes in an attempt to "douse my students' flaming certainty about the unassailability of their memories." She fakes a fight with a colleague while a videographer discretely films the scene. Then she asks her students to write down what happens. Each student's innate prejudices and personal histories shape his or her account. Almost none are true to the videotape. But they are authentic to the students' lenses.
Accentuating this effect is that we often record in our memories our emotions alone. That leaves the events and "all detail blurred into unreadable smear," says Karr.
Last week, I cited Tara Brach, who talks about the concept of real vs. true. Something can feel very real to us - but that does not make it true. The narratives we create from our experiences are only true in the sense they reflect what we imagine.
This is how we come to build parallel universes. Or, as the designer Dave Gray describes this in his book, Liminal Thinking, our own self-constructed pyramids of belief, upon which we lay the ground that we think is reality: "Your 'obvious' is one of many versions, and other people have different ones."
I believe this phenomenon is the number one problem in our collegial relationships and team dynamics. We experiences certain situations together and then emerge with alternate realities. We tell ourselves different stories. We imagine Ryan on the technology team is intent on withholding information from us, while he feels forced to sugarcoat every situation for fear we'll shoot the messenger. Each story is real. The truth is another matter.
If it's inevitable that we will experience parallel universes, how can we possibly come together?