A paradox which I’m fascinated by (and which has never been more apparent than it has this past year) is how in times of uncertainty and change, we are compelled to reach for certitudes. I suppose it’s the comfort we are seeking, of having something absolute and unwavering to attach to when so much is shifting around us. Perhaps it’s also about maintaining some semblance of control in our lives: we need to know or say something with 100 percent conviction to feel like we’re still in the driver’s seat. But that urge can lead us down all kinds of rabbit holes. We might, for example, put our trust behind something that we wouldn’t otherwise if we had two feet on the ground. All of this becomes even slipperier when we’re communicating in a digital space where what we want to believe is continually reinforced, and where the lines between reality and conspiracy are easily blurred.

This issue is about forging a different relationship with the information that is constantly coming at us. It’s an invitation to become curious about where a particular truth is coming from, not just accepting it at face value, and to then put that truth under the microscope – to expose it to some healthy scepticism. It’s easy to immediately absorb and champion something that aligns with our views. But truth is hard won. We need to test it beyond our bubbles of confirmation.

Our keenness to open up this theme came last year as we witnessed the surge in conspiracy theories and disinformation surrounding the pandemic. We felt compelled to explore the way truths are being distorted to create fear and enable further divisiveness in our cultures. What we hope you get out of the pages that follow are ideas and tools to help navigate this moment, and to be able to locate both your own truths – and the truths pertaining to our world – in ways that will, over time, bring us together. I think often of how we have been sold a story of competition and separation as being our true evolutionary nature, and how, recently, studies are showing us that this isn’t the whole or only truth. We are also caring, collaborative and community-oriented, to give one example. Perhaps that is the most important take-away: that truths are not black and white – nor do they exist in silos. They are always intersecting or informing other truths. And so, as everyone alludes to in this issue, we need to get good at holding complexity, and we need to expect more nuance and layers in the information we consume so that the truth is able to reveal itself.