This is the first episode of a new series exploring the subtle dynamics of collective shadow, narrative making & our responses to how we are perceived. In the digital epoch, it is unlikely that anyone will escape confrontation with a negative image of themselves existing in the minds of others. Do we learn from it? Fight it? Absorb it? Ignore it? And how do we evaluate anything when information itself becomes dubious? Layman is joined this time by Dr. Marc Gafni -- the world philosopher of "cosmo-erotic humanism" together with Dr. Zak Stein. Gafni is the co-president with Stein of the Center for World Philosophy and Religion, founded with Ken Wilber in 2010, where they are articulating a “new meta theory story of value in response to the meta crisis”, even as Gafni lives as a character, both beloved and controversial, in the public mind.  Our task in this episode, and in this series, is not to demonize or exonerate. We encourage people to do their own research if they are interested. Facts matter. So do feelings. But that is not our topic in this series where we are focused on something more specific. We are not exploring the content of the narratives but rather how they emerge, how they are perceived by the people inside them, how those people respond under the conditions of the emerging digital, planetary age & what they have concluded about their responses. We are not exploring content of the narratives but rather how they emerge, how they are perceived by the people inside them, how those people respond under the conditions of the emerging digital-planetary age & what they have concluded about their responses. Center for World Philosophy and Religion: https://worldphilosophyandreligion.org/