Want to make the world a better place in 2022? Let’s ask more beautiful questions
How to imagine a future we're inspired to live into
Friends, Happy new year! For those of you new to the newsletter, welcome! The intention of this newsletter is to create a deeper conversation about how to align our inner and outer worlds for personal & collective transformation. At the start of every new year, I feel like we’re granted a fresh page to write a new story. But what is that story? As I’ve learned from the art of speculative fiction: change the assumptions behind what we’re creating and ask more beautiful questions. With wishes for a sparkling 2022, M.
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We live in revolutionary times — where the once impossible has become possible. The challenge is that it’s hard to fully let go of the old when it’s not yet clear what will replace it. And so the crux of leadership in our times is to dare to dream; to ask:
What future do we want to live into — individually & collectively?
It’s a daunting question.
The usual way people try to begin to answer this is by looking at what no longer works, and flip the script. (For example, based on how my piece last year about burnout hit a cultural nerve, I’d say we’re collectively yearning to learn how to embrace real rest.)
But this approach has its limits. Defining the future through what we don’t want doesn’t necessarily paint a picture of what we do want.
And even if we declare that we want the opposite of what we have, there are usually deep structural reasons for why we ended up with what we had. (For example, we often don’t allow ourselves to rest in American culture because rest conflicts with our cultural value around “progress”.)
To engender real change, we need to clearly understand and rewrite the assumptions underlying our current reality to shift into a qualitatively different future. Otherwise we end up repeating the same patterns.
So, a more powerful way to dare to dream is to ask What if?
In simply asking the beautiful question “What if…?”, we quickly start to see what would need to change to live into the future we envision. And for really big “What if?”s, there’s often a whole lot that’d need to change. (For example, if we had a culture that embraced real rest, we’d have to let go of the story that rest is “lazy”, and therefore undeserving of love or value. And that in turn would bring many of the assumptions underpinning our current version of capitalism into question.)
Exploring the fullness of big “What if?”s is often done beautifully through fiction. And some of the most inspiring "What if” explorations I know of come from speculative fiction writers. In the hands of gifted visionaries like Octavia Butler and N.K. Jemisin, I love being transported to worlds that feel just enough like ours to feel familiar, but tip me into a radically different reality by changing a few well-chosen assumptions. Through their stories, they implicitly ask radical questions like: What if…
…power wasn’t based on force, but on vision?
…empathy was a super power?
…community is wealth?
In Octavia Butler’s words on why she wrote visionary fiction:
“Because there are no closed doors, no walls. You can look at, examine, play with anything, *absolutely* anything.”
The power of this form of visionary fiction is that it purposefully defies convention to give us a chance to imagine alternative futures. The richly textured world building is the point. It awakens in us the remembrance that if we built this world, we can surely create others.
By setting up a powerful vision of the world as it could be -vs- the reality of how it is, it creates a dynamic tension. And all tension seeks resolution. So in a sense, vision naturally invites creative change. It invites us to find a way to close that gap and create the future.
By contrast, if we had vision without clarity about the assumptions underneath our current reality, there’d be no tension. Or, if we had clarity about our reality without a vision, nothing would happen.
So, what future are you envisioning that’s different from our current reality?
It’s perhaps the most hopeful and practical thing we can do at the start of this new year and beyond.
In this time of resolution setting, I’d love to hear about what visions you hold for the future! Drop a comment below.
Melissa’s Reading & Listening List
Want a fun, light introduction to speculative fiction?
"Cuisine des Mémoires" by N.K. Jemisin
This is such a delightful short story from NK Jemisin’s collection How Long Til Black Future Month? If you have fond memories centered around food, this will be a treat. And if you listen to it, I’m really curious to hear what you’d choose in the main character’s shoes!
Also, if you grew up like I did enjoying LeVar Burton on Reading Rainbow, it’s such a delight to have him narrate this story on his podcast LeVar Burton Reads.
Want your world to be rocked?
Wild Seed by Octavia Butler
This piece of speculative fiction was one of the most powerful and brilliant books I’ve read in the last decade. In it, Butler imagines a future with completely different gender and race dynamics — and in so doing, makes incisive commentary about what it is that has led us to our current form of rapacious capitalism. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
And, if you’re looking for an intro to Octavia Butler and her work, this NPR profile is spectacular.
And in case you missed it…
This piece from 2021 on the pandemic wall that feels oddly relevant again…
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