Thinking

In futures workshops, silence is often misread as disengagement. More often, it’s uncertainty doing what uncertainty does: slowing people down.

I recently heard a story about writer whose role had shifted. They were no longer expected to write, but to help train an AI tool to write in their place. What does this mean for hope and sense of agency?

That awkward pause after a futures question? It’s not a problem to be fixed. It’s information.

Ikigai is often presented as something to be found: a neatly defined purpose that sits at the intersection of what you love, what you’re good at, and what the world needs. That framing is tidy. And I think it's misleading, to be honest.

One of the most hopeful things neuroscience tells us is that we are natural explorers. Curiosity isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s how learning happens.

I’ve been thinking about how I am often involved in creating multi-sensory, place-based futures with groups, and I’m reminded again of Miti Desai’s essay about her experience with the gurukul system of training. There is one moment from her writing that has stayed with me: a teacher peeling an apple slowly, carefully, attentively, and offering it as part of a conversation.

There is often a moment in the futures sessions that I facilitate when people stop asking, “Is this the right future?” and start asking, “What future are we willing to create together?”

One of the most useful ideas I keep returning to is Adam Grant’s from his book Think Again: in a fast-changing world, the real advantage isn’t being right. It’s being able to think again.

I revisited Kristi Nelson's reflections on deepening our comfort with uncertainty recently, and it got me thinking again about how, in futures and foresight work, uncertainty is often treated as a problem to solve.

I watched quantum physicist Shohini Ghose explain something that futures practitioners often feel in their bones: in quantum physics, uncertainty isn’t a measurement problem. It’s built into reality.