What Future Can We Create Together?

Often, people say things brilliantly. And that’s what happened after I read culture catalyst and planetary strategist, philip horváth‘, Future Day 2022—What future can we expect? and I am now sharing his thoughts with you. Because as my friend Jose Leal reminds me, when we step in creating our future together, we discover that we are all working on pieces of the puzzle. And I am finding this to be true more and more every day as I open myself to possibilities.

philip believes that it’s time to create the future together. We are being called “again and again, to create ourselves anew. Key to mastering the future will be to continue to evolve in all three areas:

1. Learn to create yourself. This starts with your aspiration of who you want to become — and really, who you want to have been one day. What kind of person will you want to be remembered as? As you orient yourself on that person, remember to have empathy for yourself. You are not meant to be there yet, so don’t judge yourself against it. Use it as a tool to keep regulating and cultivating yourself — starting with the appropriate self-care.
2. Learn to create together in new ways that leave room for play, emergence and creativity. Holding each other accountable to be our best, to focus on our potential, not our faults of the past. In our homes, schools, teams, countries and as humans on this planet with authenticity and genuine care for each other.
3. Learn to create the future from a first signal to launching something into reality, innovating, actually introducing something new. Creation isn’t new. There are maps from around the world, and today, there are plenty of tools, many free, that allow us to make things, to share things, to add value to the world. We all have the capacity to spot opportunities for value creation, we can see each others needs, and can learn how to address them.”

We Are Being Called to be the Architects of the Future, Together

philip shares what he sees as unfolding on Spaceship Earth:

• “While many don’t have a grasp on even current technology, Web 2.0 and even more so Web 3.0 (including the already buzzword infamous Metaverse) will continue to create a new spatial understanding of the world and drive further planetary integration. We see pictures of earth, we see nature, we see life, we see humanity, we see each other now, so we can no longer say we didn’t know, or can we?
• It is a fallacy to assume that level of consciousness from others, or assuming that another human has a similar grasp on reality as you do (see also false consensus effect).
• Today, innovation can happen anywhere on planet earth. Any human with a $25 smart phone has access to pretty much all the digitized knowledge of humanity (firewalls forgone for a moment). While knowledge isn’t wisdom, the availability of knowledge allows for new experiences in places where they hadn’t been before — leading to learning and wisdom through application and sharing with each other at unprecedented speeds.
• We cannot ignore that we are part of the human species, part of life, even. We are beginning to realize we are part of a larger whole, of this planet, which seems to be alive itself, as Lovelock already suggested in the 70s with his Gaia Hypothesis. With that new awareness, we now get to ask ourselves how we want to contribute to the future.
• We can imagine and create something in virtual space, and have it be printed in real life in a matter of hours. Additive manufacturing is not new, but 3D and even 4D printing will become increasingly important, especially now that the early creative part will become more accessible, and phygital will become more common.
• What solutions we create depends on whether we are focused on consumption (meaning taking away from future) or production (adding to future).
• When humanity is in moments of transformation, shaken up by the events around us, we have an opportunity to align with earth, with life as such, and become magnets for creation.
• All evil starts inside of me. We can never get rid of our demons, but we can learn to live above them. Each of us holds all of life and all of its potential — for better or worse — inside of us. Key is to actually hold each other accountable not just for what we do, but for how we show up in this world — and to who we can become as humans.
• To actively create the future, we have to learn to overcome our fear, especially our fear of divergence, of novelty.
• We are all learners, doers, teachers, creators.
• Purpose is your anchor in uncertainty. The question of purpose can be overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. Look around you. What matters to you? Choose something. Commit to it. Make happen what you can with what you have. Evaluate. Adjust. Do it again.”

philipe invites us to deeply question:

• So, what do we do with all that?
• How do we find direction and a sense of competence in an ever changing world?
• How do we create a sense of belonging to something larger than ourselves that inspires us to grow?
• What should we create, together?

There has never been an opportunity like the one that we are being gifted right now to step into the unknown and be the leaders we need in the world. When we find each other and understand we are all working on ushering in a healthy world, we can create together, like never before. We get to work … and play. This radical trek is available to each of us when we are ready to see with healthy minds and hearts.