Springtime Makes Me Think About the Future . . .
A friend recently asked me to participate in an online forum where we were asked five intriguing questions. I offer them here with the suggestion that you answer them first for yourself, before reading on:
1. What is the most pressing problem to solve globally? Why?
2. What is the most pressing problem to solve locally, in your own surroundings? Why?
3. What is your biggest fear about the future? Why?
4. Name three global leaders who will set the next decade’s course. Why?
5. What is most important in life for you personally? Why?
Here were my answers:
1. What is the most pressing problem to solve globally? Why?
People’s short-sighted, limited, us-or-them view of the future.
Everything we do is colored by strongly–possibly even determined–by our picture of the future. If our view of the world is of a place of dwindling supplies, a zero-sum game in which only the fittest, most aggressive and snakiest survive, well, there goes the ball game. All the people who have most positively affected humanity and the planet–the Gandhis, Franklins, Wilberforces, et al.–all acted from a view of the future as one of unlimited possibility, and especially, as being on a course of elevation and continual, everlasting betterment for all. And then, there is the futureview of a Kenneth Lay. Different picture, different actions, different results, different world.
How we see the future becomes the future. We need visionaries.
2. What is the most pressing problem to solve locally, in your own surroundings? Why?
How kids treat each other in schools, and how they are treated at home. That’s where it all starts.
3. What is your biggest fear about the future? Why?
That I will not get to see as much of it as I might. (Note to self: live longer.)
4. Name three global leaders who will set next decade’s course? Why?
This is really hard, because most “global leaders” respond to the course of events, more than setting them, and those who actually do set them tend to be either fairly unknown, or to arise unexpectedly from relative obscurity. (Rosa Parks–who knew?) But to stop evading the question:
a. Wen Jiabao, the Premier of the People’s Republic of China. Actually, a confession: I am nowhere knowledgeable enough to have a clue whether this guy is truly influential or not, but it seems to me that China is the 800-pound gorilla right now, and whatever they do for the next ten years, the rest of the world will have to deal with. They’re going through probably the most dramatic and gigantic (in sheer numbers) transformation in history. Yipe.
b. Omar al-Bashir, President of Sudan. Again, a disclaimer: this might not be the guy. Bashir’s in charge of one of the diciest and most delicate flashpoints in the flashpointiest region there is. But it could be that some other African leader emerges as more critical. As the world’s economic tide has moved from India, to China, I think Africa’s next. Africa is the next decade’s China.
c. Me. Ha! you say. Poppycock! you say. Why cite myself as “global leader who will set next decade’s course”? Practical reasons: it makes more sense to think of ourselves as cause than as effect. If things are going to change, they might as well start somewhere, and that might as well be here. Besides, it’s good to have influence over an influential world leader, and the only person I have much influence over (at least, so far as I’m aware) is myself.
(If you didn’t already put yourself on that list, I encourage you to do so.)
5. What is most important in life for you personally?
Truth, the pursuit of excellence, beauty, love, great food, humor. In that order. Only maybe “love” comes first. Or maybe it’s “humor.” Or maybe, “decisiveness.” Wait, that wasn’t on the list.