Harold, my apologies for the length of my reply here but I wholeheartedly agree about using “wayfinding” as a way forward.

For example, I’ve personally been building my own framework to make sense and make meaning of my own developmental journey. I call it “Be Real Creative: The Adventure of Your Life.” It embodies the leadership (“Be”), authenticity (“Real”), and creativity (“Creative”) to be nobody-but-yourself (as E.E. Cummings so poignantly described it).

Its base foundation uses Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey which wasn’t intended to be a formula for writing an epic story but actually a roadmap for living an epic life. So the allegory was meant to help people understand what psychological growth and development “feels” like as a creative transformational process. So the Hero’s Journey isn’t a literal, physical, external journey but actually a metaphorical, psychological, internal one. Put another way, it’s a fictional mythical story that relays deeper truths about life.

So when one faces a challenge in life that they can no longer navigate with their old worldview, they usually begin to question their assumptions and beliefs which begins a “quest” for them into an unknown space beyond their current worldview. This in turn usually causes “monstrous” fears to arise in them which is their ego trying to stand in the way of their growth. If they can overcome these fears though, they can gain both newer “treasured” values and newer “experiences” to live by and embody which helps them to “level up” their level of consciousness, as well as expand their worldview and sense of Self in turn.

Now if some of those narrative mechanic keywords I’ve quoted above sound familiar to you, it’s because they relate very closely to the game mechanics in role-playing games. And as you might remember, my background was in building communities online around video games such as World of Warcraft. Also I believe we’ve had some conversations about how these MMORPG environments are innovative communities of practice that foster leadership capabilities in people through exponential learning (ie John Seely-Brown).

But this emerging “life as a role-playing game” framework that I’m perceiving doesn’t just stop there with the Hero’s Journey as sort of a “Player’s Handbook” to help one “level up” in life. No, I realized something even more profound.

I realized that if you take development psychology (aka leadership development, ego development, vertical development) and use it to extend the allegory of the Hero’s Journey, you effectively have created a “Campaign Guide” for life as well. One that helps you to understand the different inner terrain one can possibly traverse across within one’s “self.” So just as MMORPG worlds have “expansions” comprised of “zones” with accompanying “levels”, so too within us are continental-like plateaus of the mind (ie Robert Kegan) that are comprised of country-like stages of psychological development with accompanying levels of development.

Now while I’ve researched the work of many different notable people in the vertical development field (ie Bill Torbert, Susanne Cook-Greuter, Ken Wilber), I’ve found that Richard Barrett’s values-based work to be the most relatable to my own framework because levels of development and stages of psychological development are determined through these “treasured” values one is seeking and needs. Even more so, the breadth of Richard Barrett’s values-based work is amazing, as it encompasses books on personal development, organizational development, and national development.

All said and done, wayfaring is the perfect way to encapsulate what this inner journey into the unknown feels like. A journey that can transform our outer world in turn, if we have the playful curiosity and courage to embrace the adventure of it.

Alas, many people don’t though. They cling to the shores of the old world, sticking their heads in the sand, disbelieving the changes rising around them until it’s too late. This is what I meant before about how life often has to hit us full force, making us suffer pain, before we’ll wake up to the realities of the world around us.