We Are All Right, All Wrong, and All Valid at the Same Time

What DISTORTION Teaches Us About Conflict and Division

We Are All Right, All Wrong, and All Valid at the Same Time

Every side of every conflict is holding a piece of the truth, shaped by lived experience, identity, and the stories we’ve survived. The problem is not that we disagree. The real problem is that we’ve forgotten how to listen.

This belief is why nobody “wins” my debates. It’s why I humanize every character, even the extremist. It’s why I explore these themes on alien worlds because distance gives us clarity. When the setting is unfamiliar, people stop defending their side and start seeing the underlying human patterns. But if we want to break the divide in real life, not just in fiction, we have to be willing to do something uncomfortable.

We have to confront ourselves first.

Let’s be honest. That is easier said than done. Here, I outline three steps toward achieving this.

Step One: Sit With the Discomfort of Your Own Certainty

Before you can understand another worldview, you have to understand your own. Not to challenge your beliefs, not yet. You have to grow into that. The first step is simply recognizing that what you hold as absolute truth is still just a worldview, a slice of a much larger picture.

This is uncomfortable because certainty feels safe. Certainty feels like identity and gives us the feeling that we are in control. But certainty also blinds us.

When you can sit with the discomfort of ‘I might not be seeing the whole thing,’ you lift the first veil separating you from the full picture.

Step Two: Prime Your Mind for Multiple Realities

Once you’ve acknowledged that your worldview is not the entire picture, the next step is opening yourself to the idea that other worldviews exist. That they are just as real and just as valid as yours. This is the part most people avoid, because it threatens the illusion that our beliefs are the only logical ones. But the truth is simple:

Everyone feels like the protagonist of their own story.

My book Distortion amplifies this and widens the divide. Characters cling to their realities because the world keeps feeding them only what feels true. The book is fictional, but the concept isn’t. Now, algorithms and curated feeds act as echo chambers, feeding us the exact messages that reinforce what we already believe.

But amplification doesn’t make our beliefs untrue. It just makes them incomplete and deeply rooted.

Step Three: Listen to Other Perspectives Without Trying to Convert Your Own

This is the hardest part, though the most transformative.

Start by listening for the parts that make sense.
Not the parts you agree with.
Agreement is not the goal.

Once you can identify the logic in someone else’s perspective, even if it contradicts your own, you’ve already expanded your mind.

Then take it a step further: listen with empathy.

Listen for the lived experience behind the belief. Listen for the wound and the fear. Listen for the longing.

One harsh truth: If you haven’t lived their life, you are not in a position to challenge the part that comes from their pain. Ouch.

You don’t have to walk away changed or abandon your beliefs. You’re simply broadening your perspective, training yourself to hear competing voices and see the human being behind each worldview.

What Happens When You Do This

Your beliefs may evolve, or they may stay the same. But over time, something amazing happens.

You begin to understand that:

We are all right.

We are all wrong.

We are all valid.

We are all shaped by forces we didn’t choose.

We are all trying to survive our own story.

And when you see that, the anger softens, the defensiveness dissolves, because the world becomes less threatening and more human. You gain a deeper understanding of others and a deeper sense of belonging in the messy, complicated human experience.

Most importantly, you become part of the solution instead of part of the fracture.

This is what I explore in Distortion, framed within an accessible world of speculative fiction and sci‑fi. It’s the work I believe can change us, one uncomfortable, honest moment at a time.

Thank you for reading. Subscribe to get free weekly episodes of Distortion. It’s an emotional ride, so strap in.