We're All Futurists Now
I’ve added the title of Futurist to my profile. I think you should too. This Pandemic has set off a chain of events that will rewrite the future. We cannot wait for someone to tell us what comes next. We’re all Futurists now.
In November 2019 a microscopic stowaway found a dark and quiet place to hide. It didn’t plan its journey, just took whichever ship, train or plane that appeared, and remained undiscovered. By the beginning of 2020 it had travelled silently to the four corners of the world leaving clues, like random pieces of a puzzle, scattered across the globe. But no one was watching.
Now borders are closed and the world has ground to a global halt. Our lives are on hold and we remain in The Long Pause. We’re all watching, and waiting, and wondering, “What comes next?”
Just a few short weeks ago I rarely heard that question. We were all simply coming to terms with this new reality, a pandemic of global proportions that no one alive today has ever experienced. Country by country, individual by individual, we were forced to stumble our way from blissful ignorance to a rude awakening. It was confronting, exhausting, and at times overwhelming, a salient reminder that deep change is hard work, even for the most open-minded and adaptive amongst us.
And there is more to come. Our world is forever deeply changed, and us along with it. When we look forward, we see only a thick forest of uncertainty. How can we expect an answer to the question about what comes next when so much is still unknown? But the truth is that you can start the process of setting your mind to the future and in doing so, you can influence the future, tend it, shape it and renew it.
When we read our own history, it will all make sense. We will see the day when we were able to visit our friends again. We will see the day we first went to a restaurant, when we attended a concert, when we travelled again. We will see if the winding back of our country’s lockdown was sustainable or if we made repeated retreats to our homes in the face of a virus whose rules we do not yet understand. We will see if treatments are discovered or if we must make an uneasy truce with this new companion. We will see which businesses survived, which thrived, and which disappeared. We will know which habits returned and which ones were broken forever. We will discover if we have lived through a recession or a depression. We will learn if nations united or fragmented, if we faced wars or made peace.
But for now we can only dream and plan, and we must do both. This calamity could trigger The Great Renewal, a glorious era of true connection, deeper wisdom, better choices and greater unity, but it won’t happen by accident and we have a long way to go. Yes, we need hope, dreams, inspiration and faith, but we also need plans, decisions, commitment and action.
That’s why I believe we must all start to think like a Futurist. We must not let uncertainty trick us into waiting and wondering. While we wait, the future comes rushing into the present without fear or favour.
We must listen and question, discover and explore. We must collaborate and cooperate, be brave and act. We can create our future with clear minds and courageous action. We can lay the path that we choose.
“Wanderer, there is no path. You lay a path in walking.” A. Machado, Spanish poet.
