Word probably traveled as rumor, gossip, and “heard-tell-isms,” meandering over land and water, shaped by the landscape of each teller. As a result, we lived with gaps, uncertainty, and mystery. When something big happened, we caught fragments of details from this person or that group, piecing them together like a patchwork quilt.

Stories were a kind of currency, passed along and shaped by each storyteller.

During re-telling, people wove their perspective, their interpretation, and their worldview into the tale, like threads on their section of the quilt. Over time, different communities might have put their cosmological spin on it, transforming stories into song, dance, or ritual. This process was how we made sense of the nonsensical and gave context to the unknowable.

In fact, oral tradition is the first, oldest, and most widespread mode of human communication. It’s inherently dynamic, diverse, and ever-evolving, transmitting knowledge that helps form and maintain cultural groups and societies. Just because we can now read, write, and watch videos doesn’t mean our brains have changed much from our evolutionary past.

I’ve been watching, with fascination, the now-familiar unfolding of opposing viewpoints in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in my community of Western NC. The struggle, playing out on social media, reflects the tension between the “official narrative” and the “conspiracy theories.”

On one side, there are the “official narrative” folks, who claim a specific group holds the truth—represented by first-hand accounts, documented events, or information from “authorities.” On the other side are the “question everything” theorists, skeptical of any dominant narrative, perceiving it as propaganda designed to distort or obscure the underlying truth.

Interestingly, these two groups, often part of the same communities, arts, or friend circles, are perennially at odds. The “official narrative” crowd gets frustrated, accusing the skeptics of complicating things unnecessarily or of being delusional. Their message?

Calm down: not everything is as nefarious as you believe.

Meanwhile, the “conspiracy” folks feel equally annoyed, criticizing the other side for being gullible and trusting systems that have consistently misled people. Their message?

Wake up: not everything is as straightforward as you perceive.

So, the debate continues, each side convinced the world would be better if the other could simply “calm down” or “wake up.” It’s an unsolvable duality, an endless dance of paradoxes.

As a student of nonduality, I wonder where the opportunity lies for a third perspective to emerge from this standoff. Could there be a “both/and” scenario?

One thing seems clear to me: each side needs the other. Without the opposing view, neither position would exist. The more entrenched one’s position becomes, the more it depends on the opposition to exist. Questioning everything or questioning nothing are both extremist stances, and it’s precisely within this mythological tension that we birth the middle way.

The deeper experience, albeit unconscious, is that both sides are threatened by the existence—and non-existence—of the other. If the “other” exists, they feel resistance. But if the “other” doesn’t exist, neither does their own perspective. And that feels like death. Herein lies the breakthrough: death is a doorway. It teaches the deepest of all wisdom—it’s all true, and at the same time, none of it is true.

In reality, both sides have a lot in common:

• • They both engage in critical thinking, though they’d deny it about the other.
  • Both have mountains of evidence to validate their perspectives.
  • Underneath, they both long for life to be simpler, trustworthy, and congruent.
  • Both seek an external truth that aligns with their inner sense of reality.
  • They both share a certain fragility—an inability to acknowledge the complexities of reality, that things aren’t as straightforward or as dark as they may seem.

Back to the old-world humans sitting around the fire. It seems we’re just sped-up, digitalized versions of our ancestors, still telling stories to make sense of life’s big questions. Over time, we’ve mastered the art of storytelling—embellishing them with metaphors, morals, and cautionary tales. But why?

Because there is no bias-free perspective.

Once we understand that no perspective is without bias, we start taking everything in context: the storyteller’s background, their orientation to life, who funds them, and their role in the events being told. This puts responsibility on the listener to discern, filter, and apply common sense. Perhaps mass media news cycles have lulled us into thinking we can passively receive information in black-and-white terms. But I’m not sure that was ever true—and even less so now.

Here are some guidelines that help me navigate this complex landscape:

• • There is rarely, if ever, a capital T “Truth.”
  • Every story carries a unique perspective and reflects an underlying belief system.
  • When people argue, it’s usually the belief systems in conflict, not the details.
  • I will never know the whole and complete story—uncertainty will abound. Always.
  • It’s up to me to use my heart, head, and intuition to discern what resonates.
  • I trust others to do the same, and if they disagree, I do my best to honor the belief systems that serve their needs, even if they differ from mine.

Many people push against my perspective, saying that it’s a cop-out or a shirking of responsibility toward the moral or better choice. That’s valid. But honestly, I’m no stranger to polarization. I have strong opinions and often express them. Yet these days, whether it’s politics, natural disasters, or world events, it’s just too darn painful to make enemies out of people in my community. For me, a wider aperture makes for a more relaxed approach, and I believe it’s more aligned with building community.

Right now, in the long recovery process after the cataclysm that has been Hurricane Helene in our region, we need each other more than we need to figure out who is right and who is wrong. I literally don’t know what’s happening on the next street over, let alone the big picture. The truth is that I’ll never know all the details. This is an opportunity to continue practicing in uncertainty.

An additional benefit is seeing the motivations beneath all perspectives, which helps me understand the human experience more deeply. And it helps me stay connected to people who disagree with me. It’s becoming clearer and clearer to me that this is far more important than determining the unknowable ‘Truth.’