Talking with prospective client about some workshops about Hope, resentment and public engagement.
The above image is just a sketch of two ideas needed to enable hope.
Well Grounded
There must a solid grounding in the past. A respect for traumas and regrets that burden at the start.
There is a need to go backwards to go forwards. There is a bias in Futurology that is similar to one found when people get lost.
Lost people plunge forward, they keep moving. Yet the solution is to stop, to rest and to go back to where they knew where they were.
To imagine hopeful futures, we need to go back. To dig into the foundations of the present to find what we stand on.
We need to recognise and honour the traumas that past generations suffered. We need to reveal what burdens we carry in the present that were passed onto us from our ancestors.
We need to be well grounded and in that we need not merely confidence about our presents but knowledge and acceptance of our pasts.
This is Alignment
People need to know where they start from
Well Anchored
There must be an emotional anchor in the future.
This is what people can long for, can aim for and can always remember.
The imagination of new futures, hopeful futures need a strong anchor. It is this that secures people in their actions in the present and helps pull them into the futures.
The core of the anchor is emotion.
We need to know what the future feels like. This is the soul of any plan. Technologies, people and methods change thru time. Process and management is not enough. There has to be feeling for people to keep longing and keep trying to be in the imagined futures.
Establishing what people feel at the start about the future is how a hopeful project (or any project) is anchored.
So we need to be well grounded and well anchored. Respecting our pasts and feeling for our futures.
This is Boundaries
People need to sense the edges of the place they are imagining