Our natural “world view” is “vast and unexplored,” only in our own mind. Through the supremacy experienced as a developing human being during those first 5-6 years of our lives, we are enter the next years convinced that our knowledge and experience is all-encompassing. We are omniscient, omnipotent. When our brain began to form in the womb, the data intake from all directions revved to a rate so fast that it cannot be clocked. Our horizon was then miraculously broadened when we exited through the “straight gate” from the womb into the world of clear light, distinct sounds and multiplied smells and textures. Our senses were like fire hoses flooding our mind with data!
Our perspective at adolescence can be described as living inside a mirrored bubble. No matter which way we look, we can only see clearly ourself and any stuff we have attached ourselves to. And that is the whole world to us. There is only a tiny pinhole to the outside, mostly used as a food hatch. As the territorial instinct begins to awaken, it constricts these fire hoses and by the age of 11 to 13, we are completely engaged in defending our acquisition of territory, knowledge and experience. After all, we can survey our territory because it is enclosed and we can see it all in the mirrored bubble. Of course, we don’t perceive the curved walls of our mind because of the mirror. We are solely and deeply self conscious.
Around age 12, we begin to hear, through the tiny pinhole in the dome, descriptions of other worlds, other children’s worlds. They sound like our world at first, but then they claim that world is theirs and when you react by protecting the world as your territory, chaos breaks out. Slowly, it becomes clear that your world is being claimed by everyone around you – everyone! Mom. Dad. Most disturbingly, brother and sister. The kid in back of you in class! The dog is the only one who is OK with the world being yours!
That is the definition of the term adolescent. Normally, that would be something to be grown out of. Unfortunately, in some environments, no one tells you that. Especially, after the 1940’s. Of course, you could make your own extrapolations if you were born earlier. Unfortunately, if you were born before that, no one will listen to you. In fact since the whole world was predominantly born since then, you just have to take great relief in applying it to your own world, no matter when you were born. That’s because no one is going to listen to you unless you can convince them in 3 seconds that what you have to say is going to enhance their little bubble-world by giving them something they want at this moment.
This phenomena determines the success of every enterprise. If you want to be in business, you must at least advertise on the premise of meeting some felt-need of the people you want to sell your product to. All due to the base instincts of adolescence clung to till-death-do-us-part.
Being “Born Again” in its original usage is the activation of the Creator’s cure for that Pinhole Perspective. The pinhole is once again widening. More data from outside my mirrored bubble is allowed in. In fact my appetite for knowing what is outside myself is returning. But now, it doesn’t seem to be for my growth alone. The collective data of my whole lifetime is clearly for a purpose outside myself, even beyond my own knowledge or gratification. I discover I have purpose, a reason for being a human being. That purpose is to be a portal, a conduit through which other humans can acquire data from outside human intelligence and experience. Data that gives meaning and transcendent purpose to all human intelligence and experience. A purpose beyond the satisfaction of bodily appetites and animal instincts. The Purpose of my Creator.
Now, though I can see much more of the world, I am really seeing, knowing, Him and walking with Him through every conversation, experience, circumstance and relationship which He designed for me and me for, before He uttered the words, “Let there be light.”