A formidable question

We can’t build what we can’t imagine. We can’t build what we can’t imagine. I’ve said it again and again, but please, let it really sink in. It’s the most important fact on our planet right now: We can’t build what we can’t imagine.

- Alex Steffen, Climate Activist, in his essay Heroic  

Tonight I got to do something that I love to do - sit around a fire with people that I'm close to.

I shared with my friends a little about attending the Climate Strike in Baltimore yesterday, and a friend asked me, "Are we *screwed*?" (That's not the actual word that he used...)

Many of us ask that question, and I too wanted to know the answer to it. I haven't asked it in a while, but I feel mildly drawn to it still, or at least the portentous story that often follows. Tonight, trying to put my finger on why I've asked the question, though, I think it's because it would help guide me in how to feel. 

"Yes, we're screwed" would give me permission to indulge in grief and then resign myself to a sad, unavoidable future (or ignore the problem altogether). "No, we're not screwed" would give meaning to my actions - good, so my actions won't be for nothing!

My thoughts about the future are initially cynical. So when my friend asked me that question tonight, I said, "Yes, I think we're screwed. But I'm still going to do everything I can to build a different, better future." That's meant to be inspiring, but really it's just cynicism protecting me from feeling like I failed, or feeling like I'm fighting a losing war.

In retrospect, I wish I had thought a little bit before I spoke. 

Here's what I'd say to him now: "What kind of future do you want for yourself, for your kids, for others?"

That question is the one I mean to ask others. That question is the one we need to ask each other more often. The strategy, the game plan, can't be developed until we've created what it means to win. Otherwise, we'll just be playing the game of survival, and we know how that game goes. Us against them. Anger, fear, frustration, resignation.

I want a world of laughter and compassion and freedom and ease. Of health and well-being, of enjoyment and satisfaction. Clear oceans and thriving ecosystems. Clean, renewable energy. Games in the sunshine and naps in the shade. All of life would have an equitable, feasible, fulfilling access to the kind of life that it's drawn to.

Try it out: What future do you want? 

The follow up question, of course, if anyone is willing to ask it, is "What can we do now to get there?" But that question isn't where we need to start.

So answer that first question, to me, to a friend, to yourself: What future do you want?

If we want a thriving, prosperous, sustainable world we have to imagine it, first...

- Alex Steffen, Climate Activist, in his essay Heroic