Make Sense of the Future? Yes You Can
2 Perspectives spanning 3 generations discussing the future
Her T-shirt read… “Be Brave & Kind”
We were talking, on a Zoom call, about how we hold the future.
Lindsay, a twenty-something and I, Dan, a seventy-something, were exploring together how to make sense of the future.
Most likely, you are trying to make sense of the future too…unless of course you don’t plan on living in it.
“Making sense of the future” means using our six-plus senses for understanding future possibilities and then taking actions to make the future as juicy and life-fulfilling as possible.
To understand the future, look at the current realities and coming attractions shaping that future. ..
The Future Realities — Bumpy (horrible?) and Beautiful (possible?)
The Bumpy:
We were saddened but not particularly surprised to read a recent report from Stanford.
Its study of 10,000 young people (15-to-25-year-olds) around the world showed that 45% felt their concerns about climate change impact their ability to function daily; 75% said the future is frightening; and 56% said that humanity is doomed.
They are reading about what is now happening and will be coming around the corner… “once-in-a-lifetime” fires, floods, arctic storms with lives and property destroyed in unprecedented climate disruptions; geo-political upheaval and surges of authoritarianism; war hot spots and threats of more coming trouble; millions of refugee migrations suffering food shortages and hopelessness; institutions failing their promises and collapsing; then add in the growth in crime, huge wealth inequities (unfairness), drug addiction, surges of suicide, mass shootings, and continuous epidemics.
BTW — recent AI analysis shows that current realities are worse than many scientists imagined just a year ago. Projections show that hundreds of millions of human lives will be lost in the turbulence of the next few decades.
From this reality data, we can quickly form a picture of a future that creates fear and drags down the human spirit and hope for the future.
Does this mean all we can do is wallow in despair? No, in fact, we believe we must do just the opposite.
As any good transformation expert will tell you…when you have a trauma or really bad experience, you can’t heal by floating above it (pretending it is not there) or wallowing in it (making the wound an identity that defines you). You can only face it and actively pass through it.
We believe we must face the future, the Bumpy and the Beautiful, and take action to pass into it with a new maturity.
The Beautiful:
At the same time we have the “bad news breakdown”, we are also experiencing a surging wave of positive breakthroughs and good news.
For example: New technologies, new thinking, and ingenuity are continuing to make life better — We live longer (moving from 40 to 75 year life spans over the last century); We are more literate (200 years ago, only 12% of us worldwide could read and write, today nearly 90%); We have more world peace (no world war for over 75 years); We have more democracy (100 years ago only 10% of us lived in a democracy, today 60%); We don’t have to work so hard to buy things (in 1980 we had to work 60 hours to buy commodities, whereas today we only work 21 minutes). And so, it goes.
I am personally privy to new technologies being developed that have real potential to be game changers for creating and distributing energy, as well as sequestering enormous amounts of CO2. We can’t change all that has been baked into the rising global temperatures and their resulting damage, but we can shape a new future…if we have the creativity and will to make the right choices.
So, given this current state of the world, how do we look at the future?
Our Take on the Future
“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”
— Arundhati Roy
Lindsay and I offer our perspectives on the future, not because we have all the answers but because we want to stimulate others to form and share their own perspectives.
We all need to recognize that how we envision the future and the decisions we make will shape the future for generations to come. We can’t predict the future, but we can shape its development.
A “Seventy-Something’s” View of the Future:
Hi, I am Dan…a wizened male striving for wisdom, who is continuously discovering that what I thought I knew to be true might not be.
I believe the deeply challenging and potentially beautiful times ahead will force us to open our lens and hearts to new ways of seeing, thinking, and creating.
Headline: We are going through a world transformation, that has the potential to lead to a huge shift in global consciousness. If we play our cards right, a new way of being fully human can emerge.
As is true of all big transitions it will not be easy, given our collapsing institutions (in which institutions will you entrust your future?) and the onslaught of the Climate Crisis, but it can be worthwhile if we are willing to put in the work.
Sources of My Future Insight: (1) From collected readings, observations, and conversations with futurists, advanced thinkers, and experimenters in future making; (2) My own received insights gathered from my work, life experiences, heightened intuition, and received messages from what some would call the Greater Consciousness or Source or Universe (Yes, there is something outside of our own little brain buckets from which we can draw information).
In my decades of running my own company, I’ve learned that there are always indicators and messages about the future, coming long before a significant transition arrives…if we only open our senses and perceptions to receive them.
“The future is already here; it just is not widely distributed”
— William Gibson
This oft-quoted insight of Gibson’s is so true. Writers, thinkers, scientists, and just plain observant people are already seeing the future emerge in our current realities. Here are just a few future realities and probabilities already here and emerging:
Regenerative & Resilient Ways of Living in the Future
The Earth has all we need to feed and power future generations; we just need to have the will and creative ability to manage and fairly distribute these resources.
New approaches to Regeneration are giving me, and companies and organizations around the world my company works with, newly energized hope for the future. In the rapidly growing, global Regeneration movement, organizations and communities are unlearning old extractive, toxic ways of creating profit and creating new ways of adding greater value back to the earth and society.
This is about the circular economy and far beyond.
In some cases, we are learning from the past. We are learning regenerative agriculture and how to respect and take care of nature from Indigenous people.
In other cases, organizations are discovering futuristic, new scientific solutions that work brilliantly, such as the restoration of coral in the Caribbean and on the Great Barrier Reef in a manner of weeks, not decades.
I know firsthand that our client businesses, which are leaders in the new economics of Regeneration, are creating greater value than their competitors. And the investment community I work with is taking notice.
Those not making this shift will soon begin to realize they are jeopardizing their future.
Hand in hand with the Regeneration movement is a move toward greater Resiliency.
The coming Bumpy Times requires that we learn to adapt to Mother Nature, in all her new forms of climate chaos disruption, not the other way around. In the past, we kept thinking we can control Nature…putting up dams and levees, building higher flood walls. But that game is over.
Working on analysis of the San Francisco Bay Area, I learned that as sea levels rise, entire population areas like Alameda and the South Bay will be forced to move in the coming years. Bristol and other coastal areas in England are projected to be underwater as glacier melt increases sea levels. No number of walls can hold back rising seas…are you listening Florida?
Resilience, as we envision it, is more than just about rebounding from a crisis and going back to the way it was before. Resilience is becoming “anti-fragile”, becoming better, and leaping to a higher level of being and living. This is a way of living that reflects the realities of a transforming Earth.
To make this new resilient civilization possible, we have no choice but to let go of our previous way of thinking and start developing a new, more mature and connected consciousness.
A New Consciousness
“In the history of the collective, as in the history of the individual, everything depends on the development of consciousness”
— Carl Jung
A positive future depends on our ability to make the consciousness leap to a new type of human…a more fully developed, more value-adding, and life-enriching human. We can’t rewind and replay the old consciousness that put us into this mess.
I study consciousness and development models. Whether I choose Kohlberg’s Six Levels of Moral Development, Keagan’s Five Stages of Human Development, or Wilbur’s Altitudes of Development, I come to one conclusion — our population largely operates at an adolescent, transactional level of consciousness. Only a small percentage hit the higher levels of maturity in their lifetimes (in case you are curious, you can include our so-called political leaders in this conclusion).
Our world cannot afford to stay stuck at the adolescent level in the future.
Here are a couple of my insights on future consciousness and change:
We are the preparers of the future soil and seeders of a new consciousness
Nora Bateson, an award-winning educator, writer, and filmmaker, as well as President of the International Bateson Institute, based in Sweden calls this work a period of “Readying”. It is our collective job to make ready for a new future.
We can and must do this individually through our personal consciousness transformations (pick your favorite practice or form…meditation, travels with medicines, somatic agency development, learning from indigenous people, etc.) and through our collective work where we live in community.
Whatever path we choose for evolving our consciousness, we must begin it now and continue as far as we can go. We must then share our learning and mentor others. What we do individually will help ready us all for a new adaptive and even transformative future.
At the same time we are working on evolving our own consciousness, we need to evolve the consciousness of our communities and discover new ways of living together. Evolved communities are key to our future.
In my area of Northern California, we are beginning an ambitious multi-year process for “Readying” our bio-regional area for the future. This multi-county “Story of Tomorrow” work will be a whole system adaption and change that requires a new level of community consciousness. It will result in a regenerative shaping of our future way of resilient living. We hope it will serve as a model, along with many others popping up around the world, for what we can do, as our current version of community and even civilization, is becoming inadequate for the future challenges.
We can’t “just sort of” do this. We must courageously commit wholeheartedly to consciousness and community change. As they say, “Go bold or go home”.
We will see a New Human walking the earth
Now this may sound like wishful thinking, but I truly believe we are starting to witness the advent of a new, more sensitive human, a human who has the possibility to step into another world of consciousness…if we just give them a chance.
There is something different about the new generations coming. Some of them are both more advanced and many are more vulnerable at the same time. They have gifts to offer we must discover and nurture.
We have always had advanced individuals amongst us that have helped raise consciousness (think of Buddha, Christ, Lao Tzu, and many others). This time, we are not looking for a single sage or saint but a great collective of sensitive, conscious people.
As the future is getting tougher and extinction is possible, I and others are seeing this new generation of people coming in ways that both delight and concern us. We need to protect and nurture them as we would a precious shoot growing in our garden.
Too many young people are having trouble coping with the onslaught of the distorting, seductive aspects of our consumer, technology-driven society. Many don’t feel they have a future in the world they see around them today. Many are turning to drugs, self-cutting, or even suicide in an attempt at resolving the external and internal dissonance.
Our world needs their sensitivity. We need it to change to a more compassionate, kind, and conscious society. This means we must understand who they are and what they need. We need to be proactive and help initiate them into the adult world in a caring way (we generally don’t have good ways of initiating youth in our society). We need inter-generational understanding and inter-generational problem solving and co-creation.
We need to actively prepare a world where young people can be nourished and can develop into a New Human, a human that can help our society and civilization evolve a global consciousness that will be worthy of their children’s children.
Let’s Slow Down
“The times are urgent, let us slow down”
— Dr. Bayo Akomolafe, philosopher, writer, activist, professor of psychology, and executive director of the Emergence Network.
Now is the time to slow down and really understand what is happening. We need to slow down long enough to see the future coming.
We need to slow down our busyness and get in touch with what wants to emerge. We need to slow down to expand our understanding of “presence” to include being present to that which is arriving.
I believe we need to slow down to see that we have a big choice to make — “In living our lives, do we choose Love or Fear ?” The answer to that simple question will determine everything.
We need to slow down long enough to prepare the way for new young people that can shape a new society.
I believe we need to take time to make ready for a new world. Take time for ourselves, working on our own evolution in consciousness and living. Collectively we need to prepare a new story of tomorrow and ready for the transformation this will require.
A Twenty-Something’s View of the Future:
My name is Lindsay, I am a relatively young student of life, trying to navigate both the world and its chaos in the last few years of my 20’s. I have perfected the art of learning the hard way, partially due to my belief that “if you never try, you’ll never know” and partially because I enjoy a challenge and the chance to grow.
It’s inspiring to me that humans have such a remarkable capacity for self-improvement, which I believe is fueled by our increased interest in understanding ourselves. I hear many of my generation proclaim “you only live once” or version of this lighthearted vantage point. Looking forward into an uncertain future keeps us more in the present by default. Many have learned it’s to our benefit if we can make the most of the current moment.
Focusing on the “now” and what we can do, challenge or change, in the interest of both the new and improved, gives me strong hope for collective action and human ingenuity to better the future. I think of current and upcoming generations as a hopeful sign of humans ability to change. The difficult state of the world challenges each new era of people to come up with creative ways to adapt, survive and thrive. The future is being shaped by us now, and it’s full of people both looking for and creating the beneficial role they can play in what is to come.
Headline — Good News: The Earth doesn’t need us. Bad news: The Earth doesn’t need us.
Sources of my Future Insight: Peer talks, mentor discussions, own life lessons, self-reflections, outside reflections, school research, community involvement, and sensitivity to the world.
My newest response to future fears is that it’s pointless to worry because action doesn’t need fear. I also believe it’s even more misguided to think we are powerful enough to outdo the cycles of nature i.e., climate crisis.
I am not naive, it isn’t that I don’t understand how we are harming the world, I simply think nature will get rid of us when it’s time. Our cycle is ultimately on nature’s course. Basically, I believe the biggest priority is focusing on how we can help nature and each other heal. The catch? Before we can heal ourselves and nature, we must learn genuine respect for both.
By learning to respect nature, we will earn the privilege of staying on this earth longer. I do believe this is happening, especially in younger generations, demonstrated in the movement toward self awareness and self expression.
When you learn to connect to yourself, you become aware of your environment, which is nature. Unfortunately most young people spend the majority of their time inside and have lost this important connection. Self-exploration opens doors to living a life that is true to you, because you understand your wants vs. needs as well as your morals of right vs. wrong. It builds a foundation of trust and understanding in both your life and those you keep around you, leading to happier and healthier relationships. To me these are signs of hope for change!
When learning self respect, the sense of safety and peace developed along the way can be a blessing that drives the desire to protect that happiness. This movement towards respect drives changes in inequalities and can subsequently challenge equalization in places like race, gender, and so many other areas of inequity.
In understanding ourselves, we can see the part we will play in the future.
The new focus we’re having on future generations has highlighted the importance of education, particularly in childhood. Investing in our future really does start with the kids.
Education, especially in the early years, has a strong effect on how we see the world. The lens I developed in school as a child is a gift in many ways, especially regarding my relationship with nature. For example, I grew up going to a Waldorf school. This style of education teaches children not just the importance, but the necessity of our ability to connect. The most important connections taught are with yourself, others, and the earth.
Now as an adult having experienced a bio-dynamic education, I do think it’s possible to live a sustainable life that also has the future of the world in mind. We just need to slow down and include nature in our core values.
Dan and I were talking about our affinity for a simple expression — “Be Brave and Kind”. For me, it is a little mantra that is packed full of life lessons. It captures the importance of an individual’s choices and decisions, which play a crucial part in connection. One must be brave enough to do the difficult things, while being kind and considerate to yourself and others. It’s a wonderful balance of strength and vulnerability.
If we were to ask a philosopher like Aristotle, he’d remind us of the reciprocal nature between these virtues. You can’t have one without the other. However, in today’s age, we as a society tend to separate them. Both bravery and kindness are acts of strength and willpower; things I feel society needs to exercise for self-improvement and respect to flourish. As we learn to be more comfortable in being true to ourselves, I think we will find it easy to be brave and kind.
Slowing down, also mentioned by Dan, is the way of the future. It also aids our ability to connect with ourselves and each other. Our fast-paced, instant gratification past has caused a level of communal anxiety from which we’re trying to manage. The beauty is in the processes that are emerging such as therapy, work/life balancing, meditation and more. Addressing and understanding the parts of our lives that we can control leads us to feel more at ease.
The irony here is that there will always be parts of life that we cannot control, yet we can always control how we respond to life. If we use both kindness and bravery as daily guiding principles, our journey toward happiness will be more fulfilling.
My approach to the future is simply to take on what I can control, plus a little extra and do the best I can with that. If I stick to doing my part, to be conscious of the earth’s future, and collect similar minded people along the way to help do the same, it will not be the end of the world in my lifetime.
I truly believe there are enough young people showing up today who want to take initiative to do good, to be hopeful.
I also think it’s dangerous and ridiculous to give up or ignore working towards a better future. As long as someone/something we love is alive, we must do all we can to nurture, refresh, and renew that rare and wonderful life.
So why should we give up on the earth and our own species?
Take Actions to Make the Future Juicy and Life Fulfilling
We leave you with a few suggestions for shaping the future…
Become a Futurist — Take this time of turbulence to slow down and understand what is happening, what is emerging, and what is coming so we can respond rather than react.
Make Life Juicy — Choose love and play. Make the choice to stay creative and work to make life juicier and richer for you and others. If you knew you were going to die soon, would you close down and withdraw, or would you keep creating and experiencing your full potential to the last possible minute?
Imagine a Story of Tomorrow Worth Building — Co-create the future story with others, then live into it.
Expand Your Consciousness & Go Cosmic Fishing — It’s never too late to do our personal transformation work (become a part of the new species) and turn our newly attuned receivers to the signals from the collective consciousness that are always informing us (what Bucky Fuller called “cosmic fishing”).
Go Back to The Future — Learn the wisdom of living on the earth from Indigenous people; make future gardens and agriculture regenerative and bio-dynamic and in keeping with what we can learn from ancient teachings.
Create a New Economy Now — Apply your learning from eight women economists who are rewriting the economy of the planet…Esther Duflo; Stephanie Kelton; Mariana Mazzucato; Carlota Perez; Kate Raworth; Noreena Hertz; Katherine Trebeck; Eve Poole.
Learn New Thinking for A New World — Change from ego-thinking to eco-thinking; increase your powers of systems thinking; embrace complexity and learn how to make it your friend in shaping the future.
Build Your Bio-Regional Community — See how your local natural world informs you how to best live in and with it; create a supportive, sustainable community in keeping with the African concept of “Ubuntu — I am who I am because of who we all are”.
Finally — Be Brave and Kind
(Maybe we all need a T-shirt to remind us.)
Written By: Dan Beam & Lindsay Lee
Illustrations by: Drew Beam