Flipping the Narrative: What Global Paradigms Look Like When We Invert the Frame

I ran a little experiment today.

I asked ChatGPT to scan the major headlines from top news outlets around the world and tell me the story they create when you blend them together. Then I asked for the exact opposite—just to see what the world looks like when you flip the narrative.

(Which pairs well with the upside-down world map I’m posting. Rotate the frame, and suddenly the “obvious” things stop being so obvious.)

Thomas Berry and Wendell Berry—no relation, just two thinkers who’ve been dear to my heart for years—both understood that we don’t simply inhabit a world… we inhabit a story about the world. Once you recognize that, you start to see how often the map has been mistaken for the territory.

Here’s the short version of the experiment:

What today’s headlines add up to:
A world defined by conflict, personality politics, economic strain, tech anxiety, and crisis-heavy reporting—especially about the Global South. Even the human-interest pieces lean toward trauma. Sports and culture mostly show up as escape valves.

The mirror-version—the world seen from the other side of the map:
Headlines about peace and cooperation. Community leadership over celebrity politics. A middle class gaining stability, not losing it. Tech framed as transparent and helpful. The Global South treated as a creative engine rather than a crisis zone. Long-form stories about renewal instead of wounds. Sports and culture as shared joy, not distraction.

It’s easy to look at the contrast and feel powerless—like no individual can possibly move the needle in a system this large and tangled.

But Yogananda—a mind whose equal I’ve never encountered, and surely a saint among the saints—brought the whole dilemma back to one place: the individual heart. He said, “Reform yourself, and you will reform thousands.”

That work begins with something small and immediate: the way we see.
When we read the news, when we feel ourselves pulled toward fear or cynicism, we can pause long enough to ask: What story am I consenting to? And is it the only one available?

Flip the map. Flip the narrative.

You might find the world becomes something you can help shape, not just survive.