"Push to Reset the World" and The Power of Dreaming

This week, the Long View is in Slovenia and loving it.

Aside from how much fun it is to visit a new place, I love recognising things that feel familiar, and learning about new ways of living, working and creating.

Some things about Slovenia - the architecture, the beautiful, safe and inviting public spaces, and definitely how functional the heating and hot water systems seem to be - remind me very much of the two years I spent as a child living in (unapologetically Communist) China during the late 1980s.

But there are new things here, too. New food to try, sights to see - and of course, a whole history to learn from people who have had very different experiences of living, to me.

On my journeys, I came across this faded sticker, "Push to Reset the World" and it stopped me in my tracks.

This is a very good piece of sticker art, because after looking up the artist @SpaceUtopian - it turns out this was exactly what they were trying to achieve:

Space Utopian Art tries to trigger the soul who comes across this sticker by planting a seed for small conscientious shifts.

So let's take up that invitation, together.

...

🚨If you could hit the reset button, and make the world over, could you do a better job than where we are now?

This is a Long View kind of question, because we are often so caught up in our day-to-day battles, that we don't look up and ask the big questions, like: what does good living in a great society look like?

😔 Sometimes, we avoid asking those questions because they are too painful. We feel too alone and powerless in our space to make changes happen to get to the better place.

🕤We may even acknowledge that change comes so slowly that we are unlikely to see "great" happen in our lifetimes.

🏡 And I have often said that when injustice in the wider world feels too overwhelming, in order to carry on, it may be necessary to stay local, and focus on the small wins.

But today, let's consider the possibility that we are more likely to achieve goals that we can clearly picture and articulate.

For individuals, we call this "visualisation" and I'm sure there is still some debate about whether this actually works, although personally, I'm a fan.

For activists, being about to effectively communicate your vision of better to others is essential for the success of your movement.

Does your thinking lean towards: utopia or dystopia? 🦠🤖

I have always liked both utopian and dystopian literature - I see them as the two sides of the same coin, actually. And it must be that I enjoy the thought experiment of taking an idea and exploring the biggest, most extreme version of that idea.

In school, I read extracts from Plato's The Republic, Thomas More's Utopia and Henry David Thoreau's Walden.

...But what really captured my imagination were boldly dystopian works like George Orwell's 1984, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and now, many years later, Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games.

(Right now, I'm working through Hugh Howley's Silo series, but don't spoil it for me, because I'm still only on the first book, Wool.)

Either way, utopian and dystopian books, movies and visuals are, to my mind, activist works of art or intellect. Only people interested in the impact of systemic ideology on human lives would think to show you the consequences of those ideas, writ large.

So, are you gonna do it? ✨Dream big ✨and push that button? 🚨

I hope this has been a welcome break, and maybe got you inspired to dream big today...

Because - and this may be easier for me to see, than for you - you are right now living in someone else's vision for how you live your life.

Wouldn't it be lovely to think that the first step towards changing that, is just setting aside a little time for dreaming up your own vision, for you?