Author’s note:
This is a visualization exercise to help one connect with what it actually feels like to live a day in the life of their idealized future. We spend time talking, thinking, and fighting about what a better future looks like, and how it should work. But what does it actually feel like? I believe it’s just as important to be deeply acquainted with this vision, this feeling, as it is to do the work of building a new world. The following is my own version of this exercise — I hope you will feel inspired to spend some time connecting to your own ideas and feelings in this way.
It is the near future.
You woke up today after a vivid dream showing you the answer to a question you’ve been thinking about for a long time now. “Am I on the right track?” you were asking. It’s been a while on this path and sometimes you need a reminder. “Yes,” the dream had said. And then you saw a picture. Got a new feeling for it.
You felt rested when the sunlight and birds woke you; you’d had enough sleep. It was a perfect, natural waking up. You feel good.
Today you’re going to connect with a group of people you found on the directory; the new project now has a designer, a small group of builders, and four people interested in providing space and materials for the first version. It feels meaningful. Everyone involved is so smart and clearly cares about their work. You’re fairly sure that no one will have ever seen anything quite like this before. You’re curious and excited about what comes next. You’re in that funny dance with motivation, vision, and unknowing-ness that you’ve spent a long time learning to dance. You know you’re in it for the right reasons, and whatever happens will be for the best. This knowledge is what makes the holding-with-a-light-touch possible. No desperation. Sometimes nothing in particular comes out of this kind of work. Or maybe just a lesson or something. Sometimes life-changing, world-changing things come out of it. Sometimes something kinda small, in-between. You don’t know until you try, make the thing. You know that either way, you’re living the human purpose. Humans are inherently makers.
You think back for a moment about how none of this could have happened just a few decades ago, back when everyone was trapped. Locked in the money system. Everyone was scared all the time. Everyone was sure there wasn’t going to be enough; sure that they weren’t going to be OK. So of course they all acted accordingly. They created the reality they feared. It wasn’t really their fault.
Thank God people got out of it. What a dark and sad time that was.
None of these good times could have happened then because everyone was so worn out, completely frayed nerves. Always too busy to think clearly. The pandemic had almost woken them up, but, they got lulled back to sleep again. Stuck in the money nightmare. The nightmare that told them they were only born to be used up for someone else’s blind stupid desire.
What a miracle it was when the money started to get methodically weeded out of our lives. That woulda sounded crazy back then. But that’s when technology finally shifted in the right direction. They started making tech to replace all the work no one wanted to do, instead of all the things people love to do. Early in that time, this work-replacement was considered a bad thing; a threat. Because without the work, how would they survive? But once everyone had what they needed, once everyone knew that things would get better for them instead of worse, (because things were changed so that they would get better), then suddenly everyone wanted tech to take their job. “Free me from this soul-killing busy-work!” they all said. And they started helping instead of fighting. Tech shifted to focus in the right places. It wasn’t long before no one had to do the jobs no one liked anymore. Just over a decade, once all the resources and people’s energy were being poured in the right direction. Once all the people got involved. Once they had more free time, they were healthier, and they could finally think clearly again. It was a positive feedback loop in the most literal sense. Things moved towards the positive and they did it faster and faster.
People found themselves with so much more free time, and something kinda magic happened. People knew they were going to be ok, and they had time to connect with who they really were. So they didn’t feel useless when they were resting, they just rested. And they got better. They knew they finally had their chance to do the thing they dreamed of. And now that money was out of the picture, those dreams weren’t just about money for its own sake anymore. Power struggles and status symbols were so much more easily seen by everyone as the foolish wasteful things they are, and so people fell into those traps less and less often, and after a while those things were so uncommon, they were almost never seen at all. On the rare occasions those kinds of mental aberrations came up in a community, they were handled more like a temporary sickness, and those who were suffering were treated with care and rehabilitated. Sometimes it took a long time, but that was ok, because now we had time for things like that. We knew that’s exactly the kind of thing that really matters.
The directory was formed because now we had all these people, with all these skills, and all these ideas, and people who wanted to learn new skills, and there were lots and lots of dreams to make come true. Enough good, fun, exciting, rewarding, passionate work to keep people engaged and excited to be alive for generations to come, easily. People wanted to connect with each other to do the work and try new things; even to try on new lives. People found themselves energized and inspired on a level most had forgotten human beings were even capable of, now that they weren’t smothered by the collective guilt and fear of knowing their way of life was going to eventually kill the planet and themselves. Because it wasn’t going to anymore. They were finally freed from the burden of knowing one’s existence is destructive. The lightness in people’s souls changed everything. It became normal to wake up in the morning excited to start the day. All this new relief and freedom fed into itself like an ever-growing explosion of human happiness and creativity, which made everything it touched better. It healed things. Humans finally found their place; remembered on a collective level who they were meant to be.
As you think of this incredible time, you see it in your mind, you feel so good, and so light it’s like a huge ball of energy that wants to explode out of you. So perfect to know exactly where you’re gonna direct that energy, and that it’s exactly where you’re supposed to be. You’re almost to the studio space now and you can’t wait to see the new friends you’ve connected with on this fun-work-train. You know that they’re just as excited as you are to share what you’ve come up with today. You’ll share your ideas, then you’ll spend as long as you’re inspired working on the next steps. It’s fine if it’s only a couple hours today. It’s beautiful and perfect outside today and you might just go lay by the creek later. The neighbors might want help with the kids so maybe you’ll do that. The kids are turning into such amazing people. You’re excited to see what the next generation does now that the shackles are off, the old bad programming is gone. They’re all so creative. They have some really good ideas.
It’s nice to have some different options. Some days you find yourself energized for ten hours of working on the project, and others, you feel like doing something different. It’s ok, you know there’s time. You’re going to be OK, either way. Everyone is going to be OK, either way.
