If you want to live a happier life, become a Futurist
We all have that friend who won’t take off the rose-tinted glasses, who drinks the nostalgia kool-aid, and who says “hey, remember the time when…” at any given opportunity…
They’re stuck in the past.
Now, the past is not an inherently bad place to be, sometimes… It forms who we are as adults, allows us to celebrate our greatest achievements and consoles us when we lose someone or something from our lives.
Unfortunately, it can also influence the way we view the future and not in a good way.
Growing up I was always fascinated by history. I learnt the names of the major battles of World War I, devoured anything I could on the Romans and read voraciously about the Huns, the Mongolian empire and the Silk road.
I trained myself to be awestruck at the past and it’s many rich and eclectic epochs.
As a young adult, I spent long hours in art galleries. Although I didn’t realise what I was doing at the time, I was meditating, immersing myself into other worlds strung together by oils and acrylic thinking to myself “I wish I could be there instead of here”.
Looking at idealized impressions of the way things used to be, we can fall into the habit of imagining a past that never really existed. In doing so, it is all too easy to think that in today’s world something that was there has been lost.
Stoicism. Charity. Community. Curiosity. Awe. Classical values. Simplicity.
Take your pick.
Misguidedly, a significant wedge of the world has convinced themselves that the best is behind us. The baby boomer peak that ended with the 2008 Financial Crash marked the end of the west’s unbridled prosperity. Since then it’s all been downhill.
If the media is to be believed we are in the final days of Rome. Not only are the ecosystem, the financial markets and law and order collapsing, but the very values on which civilisation is built seem under threat.
No wonder, therefore, that the past seems infinitely preferable to the chaotic unpredictability of the modern world. The status quo is familiar and reassuring. The future — terrifying and lacking in equilibrium.
Humans love to be in the know about impending catastrophe’s that others are oblivious to.
It’s hard-wired into our survival instinct. It is the reason conspiracy theories are so juicy.
Although we scoff at millionaires building subterranean bunkers in preparation for “the event”, a small part of us wonders if perhaps they’re onto something….
As such, we become addicted to the endless string of tragedies, catastrophes and horrors that we see on the news, which are compounded by their relentless ubiquity in the form of the devices which we have glued to our hands, only heightening that chemical addiction.
If you dare to look up from your phone you will notice that the world is blindly going about its day, clearly oblivious to the truth, so naive…
I had a friend once who was convinced that collectively we had about five years left on the doomsday clock.
Weirdly, each time I saw her, that number seemed to get pushed back by a year.
So what’s going on here….?
1 ) All Cynicism Masks a Failure to Cope
I don’t recommend being stunned into passivity.
Inaction breeds resentment and resentment is contagious.
It seems that the twenty-something’s of the Western world, in particular, resign themselves to the inevitability societal and environmental collapse.
The collective expressions of apathy such as Quiet quitting and the Great Resignation can be attributed in some part to this sense of debilitating pessimism about our future. Good luck to the hard-working simpleton who tells you “not to worry” and that “it’s all going to work out just fine.”
How irritatingly optimistic.
This sense of futility about our future, however is emotional, not rational. A misguided certainty that they will be vindicated when it all comes crashing down is a consolation prize nonetheless.
All Cynicism masks a failure to cope – John Fowles, The Magus
One of the most rousing stories on the internet in recent months was the announcement of the NEOM project in Saudi Arabia. Four state-of-the-art projects in clean, utopian, futuristic living which include:
- A geo-engineered mountain range with a man-made reservoir doubling up as both a ski-resort and hydro-electric generator…
- An artificial 34km long statement-edifice that reflects sunlight back into the atmosphere and offers inhabitants luxury living and biodiversity in the middle of the desert…
- An octagonal industrial port, the worlds largest floating structure, home to 90,000 people and 13% of the worlds trade but critically, sustainable!
Have you raised your eyebrows yet?
Our inclination to scoff at these announcements tells us more about ourselves than the project itself.
In order for any form of moon-shot innovation to be successful, we are politely asked to suspend our disbelief and not go breeding misanthropy.
Your scrutiny has no currency here.
Similarly, the discussions that actually make a difference in the world (of which I am not a part) are unaffected by unchecked levels of anxiety of individuals with a good heart.
Having a panic attack as an emotional response to the intentionally triggering news article that we choose (critically) to read is not going to make the blindest bit of difference, so why do we do it?
The problem is that there is a dissonance between what we convince ourselves we should do right now as individuals to create a better future and what we can do collectively as a society in the next 5–15 years.
A lack of agency (or at least the feeling of a lack of agency) seems to be a driving factor for either paroxysms of rage at the mere suggestion of a potential solution, or, total resignation towards at the future as a whole.
2) The paradox of disruption
Advancements in technology are often met with one two responses. If the technology in question solves an existing problem it may be slow-clapped with the response that it is too little too late, if it is a cosmetic technology however it is greeted with total scorn.
The reality is unfortunately that it takes two to tango.
Both Meta’s and to a lesser extent Tesla’s existential valuation crashes in the stock market last year are indicative of the problems facing Futurists; that their ideas are too far ahead of the market.
The right idea at the wrong time.
The impetus to become a “first-mover” and “corner the market” is leading to a swathe of companies that are built on unchecked levels of hype revealing their hand before all the bets have been made and as a result, falling short.
The paradox of “disruption” thinking is that it often is more like an interruption — a rude interjection in the middle of a restaurant the startles the diners before the commotion dies down and they finish their meals in silence. A blip between what came before and what comes after characterised by novelty without sustainable longevity.
The green-washing of inherently polluting companies trying to save face has led the public to grow weary of corporate pledges and narrow-minded in our outlook.
Even the Green New Deal, with its radical overhaul of existing energy systems to incorporate mass-rewilding and carbon credits is not universally accepted as being the definitive solution to climate change.
Our intransigence stems from the fact that we assume that these developments have their fifteen seconds of fame on the front page of a daily broadsheet before being tossed in the bin of failed ideas.
A commitment to their longevity and their capacity for exponential improvements over a relatively short time-frame is seemingly forgotten.
Although, maybe we are too wide-eyed if we deign to think that we will be able to rally ourselves in total unity without experiencing some degree of kick-back.
Closed-mindedness leads nowhere though, so what’s the alternative?
3) The Adjacent Possible
At the end of a hot summer in 1854 Europe was experiencing a cholera epidemic. The poverty-stricken tenements of Soho were overcrowded and rife with disease.
With bodies piling up the disease was attributed to a ‘miasma’ circulating bacterial waste through the air. Physician John Snow (not that one) on the other hand, was convinced that Cholera was actually a water-borne disease.
Outside the pub that bears his name today in Soho, Snow made the connection not through laboratory research or scientific experimentation but by surveying the population, he figured out that it was the Broad Street water pump that was infecting the local population, disproving a long-held belief that the molecular transmission of cholera was air-bound.
Something that today seems insanely obvious somehow plagued hundreds of physicians who pertained to a quasi-scientific belief without any scope for an alternative explanation.
In his Wall Street Journal essay The Genius of the Tinkerer, Steven Johnson, talks about ‘The Adjacent Possible’, “this kind of shadow future — hovering over the edge of the present state of things , and acting as a map of all the ways in which the present can reinvent itself .”
Social conditioning, practiced behaviours and lived experience shape our experience of consciousness and thus dictate most of what we hold to be true. How can we expect to know any better? After all, our map of the world is the extent of our territory.
Let’s take that sentence literally.
I can vaguely conceive of Timbuktu in my mind and thanks to the miracle of Geoguessr (as a proxy for the world wide web as a whole) I can roughly approximate what it would be like visit there.
Beyond that, however, any approximation, any concept I have of what Timbuktu would be like to visit is a subjective hypothesis shaded by a multitude of subjective even bias inputs that I have subconsciously received over the course of my life.
Yet without actually visiting I really know nothing about this place.
Even after visiting, any claim i could make about Timbuktu would be made with limited subjective evidence and be regulated by the confines of my own reality.
In the past I worked alongside historians; academics, curators, tour guides. They viewed the world in a certain way. Today I work largely with people who I consider to be futurists; professionals in the fields of programming, computing, machine learning, design and AI technologies. They view the world very differently.
Their ability to quickly shoot down my natural disposition towards cynicism about the next big thing and to propose new ideas that they and their enterprises have actually been tinkering with, is staggering.
What strikes me about those who work in tech startups,in particular, is that they endeavour to find a solution to whatever technical conundrum is causing grief.
Yet, when it comes to our own emotional grievances, anxieties about the future and feelings of purposelessness, we hardly challenge the notion at all.
A predilection for a pessimistic outlook is one rooted in the grief of the user and their own narrative about the world.
This type of thinking is hermetic and by seeking to avoid disappointment belies not only the potential of the individual but the potential of society as a whole.
“We humans are this consciousness that confronts potential with all of its catastrophes.” — Jordan Peterson, Firebrand and Agitator
In order to solve problems and innovate you have to dabble with multiple failed iterations and embrace the potential for catastrophe that comes with the the risk and the possibility for many failed attempts
Divergent thinking is about not being attached to the end result. Instead it asks that we entertain, dabble and tinker with creative possibilities; not in a slapdash way but through cycles of trial and error.
Geo-engineering is a case in point. In order to save the world from climate breakdown there will need to be a slew of failed attempts and knowing when to get off of one leaky boat and onto the next will be vital to avoid sinking.
In enterprise, agile systems have become commonplace giving us feedback loops in close proximity to work that has only just been done. A willingness to try new ideas and a culture that fosters left-of-field thinking free of disdain will bring about experimental results which might never have otherwise been considered. Besides, A left-of-field idea is only left of field until it yields results.
We’re getting better at reacting quickly to a problem and altering the course of our mistakes, steering clear of an increasing number of icebergs as we go.
Undoubtedly many of the answers to today’s problems will seem insane in their simplicity to later generations and our ability react quickly and decisively in a collective once we know what we are doing allows for the possibility of an adjacent possible in which an alternate course of history can be plotted and executed.
4) Zones of competence
For myself, not knowing about science and being self-convinced that I was not good at anything logical has been a self-imposed hindrance to my own happiness.
Problem solving is supposed to be difficult. It takes you out of your mind and into the real world — focusing on the task in front of you — like meditating in a gallery but in a way that gives you agency. Recognising the trends and patterns before you is a part of the game and the immediacy of the results that you are trying to achieve can lead you to think more expansively and creatively, triggering flow.
Knowing your zone of competence but not sticking religiously to it increases the probability of solving problems, however familiar, in new and unexpected ways.
That “Eureka!” moment in which your predictions about the trends and patterns have been vindicated equals presence which sits at the core of human happiness and runs deep into our DNA
On a larger scale, setting medium-term goals within your field of competence can have a similar effect.
For an innovative problem-solving concept to become a facet of our lives it has to be scrutinized and road-tested to the nth degree.
Often many of these ideas fall way short.
But, if humans were motivated only by the prospect of their achievements unfolding with near future velocity, we wouldn’t have survived long enough to get ourselves in the seemingly sticky position we’re in now.
When we operate within our zones of competence, we realise that we are autonomous, can make things happen and will change the world in our own small way.
Futurism becomes a tantalising prospect.
5) The Realm of Possibility
At the beginning of this article I promised you that if you want to live a happier life you should become a futurist.
Like myself, you may not have the technical training nor the certificates of academic rigmarole to become a NASA engineer, climate scientist or architect for NEOM.
That doesn’t mean you can’t become a Futurist.
If you:
- think laterally/ associatively rather than a linear way.
- engage in dialogue with others about future predictions based on current technological and scientific trends
- get excited by fiendishly difficult conundrums
- and entertain the possibility that “it might all just work out”
… then you are well on your way to a greater sense of presence, flow and contentment in life.
At the core of futurism lies the tenet that the future is fluid and ever-changing.
A world full of adjacent possibilities.
A vision for the future therefore, is created only by an ability to be suggestible, not to fixate and ruminate but to cast aside your self-convinced beliefs and entertain alternative possibilities.
Lurking somewhere in the immediacy of the future lies a solution and a willingness to engage, dream and ponder and collaborate with existing ideas claws that adjacent possible a little closer towards reality.
