I want to share a simple framework that emerged from observing people around a campfire. It’s helped me make sense of my personal journey and the liminal space we find ourselves navigating.
Imagine sitting in a circle around a campfire. The fire casts red light that dances across our faces. We play songs, tell stories, or simply sit watching the ever-changing flames. Eventually, someone pulls a device from their pocket. Blue light illuminates their face. Their eyes focus, their awareness is on the controlled rectangular space. They are no longer aware of the fire.
We exist in two worlds simultaneously: the Red World and the Blue World. These worlds can be physical places, but they are primarily states of mind. We exist in these worlds to varying degrees depending on our surroundings and our awareness.
The Blue World 
The Blue World is material, logical, left hemisphere (analytical, sequential, grasping). It breaks the world into discrete objects to be manipulated and controlled. It’s the screen with manmade images and the synthetic world we’ve built around ourselves. It has brought us progress, wealth, and control. It’s the world of quarterly reports and optimization algorithms, of LinkedIn profiles and productivity hacks. It’s stressful, but we turn to it for reward and comfort.
The Red World 
The Red World belongs to the right hemisphere (holistic, contextual, relational). It sees the spaces between things as alive and meaningful. It is chaotic and beautiful, irrational and emotional. The Red World lives in underworld of mythology. Physiologically, it resides deep within us, mysterious in its communication and hard to describe.
My Great Divide
For most of my life, I was firmly planted in the Blue World. As an engineer, I lived in spreadsheets and technical reports. I could support my family, solve complex problems, and feel the satisfaction of measurable progress. But something was missing.
Around five years ago, that missing piece began calling to me in ways I couldn’t ignore, like the hero that resists the call of the quest. I felt distant from friends and family, caught in a dark bubble. Not depression, but a separation from the world I knew. The Blue World suddenly felt hollow. I didn’t have language for what was happening. I just knew something was profoundly wrong, despite everything appearing fine on the surface.
The Red World demanded attention and things got weird. Dreams became vivid and meaningful. I found myself drawn to mythology, to Jung’s work on the unconscious, to walking trails where I could dig up the past and simply feel. I started having conversations with the ancient rocks of the Niagara escarpment.
This happened to coincide with COVID lockdowns. It was as if the external disruption gave permission for my internal disruption to unfold. For two years, I rode the edge of madness. The rational part of me was tired and just wanted to be normal; the emerging part of me was finally coming alive. The breakthrough came when I began talking to my parents about old family wounds, conversations that had been avoided for decades.
Now I’m in the integration phase. How do I balance the Red and the Blue while finding my purpose? This framework has helped me navigate and communicate in liminal spaces. Hopefully it can help you too.
Every day I dance as my way of connecting with “Red,” also my avatar/alter ego in the Glass Bead Game. Bob the song you shared is such a perfect sonic emblem of the Blue World’s pull to numb deep-felt feelings… the lyrics capture that ache of disconnection and the longing that screens can’t soothe. Thank you for using it as a metaphor; its on my “feel-good” playlist now! 
