“Don’t get mad — get organized.”
We asked for things to get shaken up even more. Change is not happening fast enough, profoundly enough. And the US and other countries/regions have spoken with blunt and devastating instruments. We are, collectively, understandably, deeply confused and dissatisfied.
We desire clarifying changes, especially when we don’t see the slow erosion of a world moving further from Growth to Constraint. Or maybe one kind of Constraint to multiple and more intense Constraints.
Upheaval clarifies. Heroes and villains emerge and fall. Innocents get caught in the wrong places. Established structures and ideas we once fervently believed in lie exhausted. Other changes are resisted as some lament that times aren’t like they used to be, that life isn’t as good as it once was. And never will be again.
Civilizations have been reduced before to artifacts barely recognizable in the dirt.
Those individual lives and the landscapes they knew well left only traces of their existence. Even less do we know of their passions and values, their daily pursuits.
Ironically, we live in a time when cherished icons of meaning are intentionally destroyed while others are conserved or even newly discovered and preserved.
So hungry are we to know ourselves and what humans have done before.
“Don’t get mad — get resilient.”
Those who feel clarity of mind now might push forward with half-baked ideas. They assume an understanding of issues and with a sense of urgency do something now that seems useful to some end.
And maybe there is great urgency. There is pain NOW. In turbulent times we see more pain, felt deeply and broadly, than in times of greater stability. We seek better lives in stability.
We have been experiencing times of urgency. With heightened uncertainty we will feel more urgency. It’s a time when clarity of mind and using emotion to empower us will avert recklessness. We will benefit from critical thinking. The ability to vividly see and interpret with nuance and compassion. To, in fact, be awakened. Or - be Woke, if with different or evolved concepts. We need wisdom.
It's Time for a Long View
We yearn to understand why we’re here and what we’re supposed to be doing — not just taking what we’re given.
We cannot assume we can only enact blunt, shortsighted, and tactless moves or even allow neglect. We cannot assume that those with power, money, or fame embody the best foresights and "solutions". We must discern false prophets and their lies, and there will be many more, from more directions, than there are now.
Humanity will mature or die trying.
Futures Thinking is more imperative than ever.
Yet Futurists may be in a precarious spot.
Our role is to foster visions of possible futures based in empirical evidence of reality. But here's the catch. Charlatans also talk about reality and then offer narratives of consequences based on fantasies, a.k.a. lies.
For instance, a fake futurist may refer to a climate change effect and then propose a future scenario that shows that effect mediated. What is fake is that the effect is explained by an action that a) would have no such effect, and b) involves a policy that would be immensely harmful to something/someone in some other way.
The sorry consequence is that charlatans may be believed to be effective by those who were supposedly protected by that policy if they believe that by some magic they were not harmed and will not be harmed by such actions.
The danger is that futurists may be lumped in among the charlatans.
Our directive as legitimate futurists, then, is to double-down on empirical data and clarity of purpose. To commit to our hard work applied correctly and altruistically. We cannot afford to be naive.
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