The adage goes that problems cannot be solved at the level they are created.

In other words, we need to think differently in solving them than we were thinking when the problems arose. We must find a new perspective – change our mind, literally – in order to break from long-held beliefs of who we are and how we exist.

For too long we have restricted our compassion to those few who are near to us in lineage or location, at the expense of our larger community. Einstein once described this as an “optical delusion” of our consciousness, one so profound that it acted as a prison. This cognitive dissonance not only convinces us that we are separate from each other, it leads us to believe that we should either be indifferent to the struggles of our neighbors or that we should live in opposition to one another.

The truth is there is no such thing as “others.” And all it takes to remove the facade is a desire to gain a higher perspective. In his seminal book on chaos theory, James Gleick described the manner in which cloud formation seems random when viewing it from the surface of the earth, where most of us spend our time. However, when viewing cloud formation from above the clouds, there is order to the shapes and sizes they take. To see this order in what appears chaotic, one need only find a greater vantage point.

Astronaut Rusty Schweickart personalized this when, serving on the Apollo 9 mission, he was the first to “stand” outside the spacecraft, tethered to it and able to look back at the earth from space. What he described was a place not defined by separateness but one in which “all boundaries suddenly disappeared and what appeared in their place was intelligence, harmony.”

Schweickart wrote about the boundaries we call countries and the arbitrary lines over which we kill one another. From his perspective – looking at the world from outside of it – the separateness we have created is rendered not just small but stood on its head. “From where you see it,” he wrote of his higher perspective, “the thing is a whole, and it's so beautiful.”

The “thing” is us, together on this planet. It is the deeper truth of our existence & our connection to one another.