Doing Something
With thanks to Steve who suggested doing it
The challenge came out of the blue. It could not have been more stark: You have spent the past 25 years thinking, talking and writing about the future. So why don’t you stop talking and actually do something?
We all have opinions. Thinking about what needs to change in our lives is undoubtedly the most normal inclination shared by all of us. At times, if we get really frustrated or annoyed about the absurdity or unfairness of life, we might go so far as to complain to our friends in the pub about the scoundrels in government, greedy bankers at the top end of town, my wife’s psychopathic boss, or that moron of a referee at the game last Saturday.
Sometimes we might find an opportunity to take a more calculated stance and whinge about the same things from the vantage point of a pulpit, the steps of Parliament, or some other forum with a captive audience. But apart from the random intense longing to take things into our own hands, most of us do very little to change the status quo or our own lot in life. In the end it is just too difficult.
As for me it’s not as though I’m lazy. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day to hold down a job, relax a little, do the daily chores, and follow up on every single grievance or unfair rule that happens to irk me — even less the chance to track down others who share similar opinions. Most of the time we just live with aggravation, put up with fools, and shake our heads in disbelief at the latest human folly. We can always stroll down to the pub later and have a whinge.
So the challenge to get off my bum and do something is dismissed with the contempt it deserves. For a start it implies that I haven’t actually done anything prior to this moment. Nothing useful at least. It infers I am incapable of action — that my life is full of bluster and little else.
How dare he? He obviously does not really know me!
Surely a few strangers in my audiences would have gone away determined to change something in their lives after hearing me speak? Doesn’t that count? What about that bloke who tapped me on the shoulder just last month at Beijing Airport and told me that my latest book, Heresies, had changed his entire outlook on life? And what about the many clients I have advised and cajoled after spending hours of analysing their problems and attending to their woes? What about all the proteges I have emboldened. Heavens, they spend their entire lives doing stuff as a result of bumping into provocateurs like me!
I readily admit that the majority of my career has been taken up with writing and talking — in each case the inherent loneliness prolonged by thinking. Deep thinking mind you. Not your casual one-dimensional musing! But that doesn’t mean I can’t be useful. Or practical. It certainly does not mean I need to do something else or more or different in order to feel appreciated and valued.
How dare he! Best to ignore it I suppose. Perhaps he thinks I’m incompetent when it comes to action. How dare he….
Damn it. I think he might have a minor point though. If the task of the thinker is to expand our knowledge by speaking broadly to the transcultural dimensions of human existence, then a moral purpose must be evident. If the writer’s occupation is to connect ideas in the search for meaning, then there is a responsibility to find the truth. And if the orator’s role is to motivate and inspire, there must also be some kind of personal evidence that makes the message credible.
After so many grand ideas, so many words spilling off the page, so much stimulus to reach for the stars, purposeful action becomes vital. If there is no action then there is nothing. All the talk is empty bluster. So his challenge does carry some weight I suppose.
Come to think of it, he’s got a few good points. Thinking is totally safe. Thoughts can be kept secret and under wraps for as long as one likes. There is no reason to divulge them to others unless pressed to do so. If they are aired publicly then others can choose to ignore or dismiss them. End of story! I don’t want to be considered innocuous. So my thinking must inevitably lead to something else. I get that. But my preference is for communicating ideas through writing and speaking. And that just gets us back to where we started.
How dare he!
Actually writing too, it must be admitted, can be something of a sheltered occupation. It matters not what format a writer uses. Books, articles, essays, screen plays, editorials, opinion pieces, academic papers, blogs or theses all have one common factor — they are a relatively safe medium to hide behind. Our modern aversion to the printed word and the dumbing down of society also play into that. The written word can be so casually shunted aside in favour of imagery or a live performance.
Speaking is a little more hazardous of course. It is hard to get away with a mediocre performance when a live audience is ready to clap in unison — invariably a sign that you have committed a sin in their eyes — heckle vociferously, or carry you out on their shoulders in mock triumph. So much depends upon creating a bond with the audience. Without that relationship it is possible to die a slow death — a result ranging from bored yawns to the need to escape the scene as rapidly as possible in order to avoid physical injury. And that doesn’t even take malicious questions into account. Questions that so easily can sound more like declarations of hostility: I must take issue with your reasoning. That diagram is just wrong — and so are your sources. But you claimed the opposite of that in your last book! I don’t think you really know what you’re talking about! Oh yes. I’ve had all of these, and more. Public speaking can be very damaging to one’s health.
But nothing is as dangerous as taking direct action. Especially when that action is an attempt to realise one’s personal ideas and dreams, previously only accessible in written or spoken form. Action takes ideas and makes them meaningful. And that takes courage and determination.
Okay I guess he has more than just one valid argument. Damn it.
Could I really have been playing a little too safe all these years? Many of my ideas have yet to be tested in actuality. And even then they might not easily translate into different cultures, or scale-up to the extent that I often say is necessary. So how can I really claim to be a philosopher-activist, or a futurist, or any of the other exotic labels I’ve been given over the years?
Speculation is all very well. But if he is saying I should actually do something, what is the thing I should do? I am already doing as much as I can fit in. Besides I have always said there is too much doing and not enough reflection. He will no doubt counter that by saying reflection doesn’t necessarily lead to doing anything. It exists only in the mind so it cannot be doing.
Doing something… What could I do that feels right and that grows out of my thinking, writing and public speaking? A business based upon creating desired futures perhaps? An entrepreneurial futurist? Now there’s a thought. A going concern based upon two roles usually considered to be mutually exclusive! Most practitioners of foresight teach futures studies, consult using a suite of classic futures tools and methods, or draft hypothetical scenarios for large corporations and governments. Others, usually connoisseurs of three word catchphrases who manage to convince themselves and others that the future is simply an extrapolative synthesis of present trends, we can safely disregard. They are bubbles that pop almost as soon as they have materialised.
In all three former instances real-world projects designed to tackle the flaws within our most life-critical systems are avoided. That’s fine. They would invariably require massive resources and a willingness on the part of those with potentially deeply conflicting belief systems to cooperate. So risk is a major factor. Let’s face it most of the ideas arising from futures workshops are so fanciful that they would court disaster from the very beginning. World peace, eliminating poverty, global nuclear disarmament and feeding the world are generally considered unattainable illusions best left to the super rich or the clinically certifiable.
On the whole futurists do not seem to make very good entrepreneurs. They might be innovative scholars or inspiring speakers. But entrepreneurship? Hardly. Those that do venture into starting a business where they are not the centre of attention are usually commercially very astute with a technological bent. They see a market niche and capture it with a cool product. Think Steve Jobs or Elon Musk. But these individuals always seem to avoid the mantle of futurist — possibly because of an unfortunate association with bureaucratic process and what that would then do for sales!
Not that I have ever called myself a futurist. But the numbers of that ilk who go into the business of making the world work more effectively — by reinventing the thinking and doing that is clearly detrimental to human life and to the biosphere of our planet — by prototyping that design and then scaling-up on a global scale, can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Richard Buckminster Fuller comes to mind. But then I pause. Who else?
So perhaps that is it. I will do something worthwhile. Things I have spoken and written about on many occasion. I will start a business to make the world work better for everyone on the planet. This business will reinvent systems that are failing the majority of the human family, surface opportunities to prototype the new design and then, assuming it is better for the health and well-being of most people than the incumbent model provides, find individuals and institutions to help scale-up this design around the world.
Now all I have to do is convince people that I am neither wealthy nor mad!
How dare he!
