Just before New Year we went to Paris for a week. A couple of nights before we were due home, I dreamt my New Year’s message for this blog:
“The task for 2009 is to address the question of how we can construct enticing futures that will work.”
Now there have been a couple of problems with getting this message out. The first was, despite seemingly spending most of the night in a half wake, half dream state, composing variations on this theme, when I came to write it down the key word, “enticing”, had disappeared from my mind, leaving a large blank space. (I can write this now, because during this afternoon’s little snooze, it kind of wandered back into my mind. Not the usual pop here it is, more a kind of absent minded I’m back.)
The second problem has been looking at it now it seems a bit pompous and rouses all my concerns about the dangers of imaginary futures. (Think Pol Pot and Year Zero) On the other hand, as we liberal minded people are prone to say, since dystopic visions seem all the rage some counter visions may be in order. For start, how about cultivating kindness, as Adam Phillips and Barbara Taylor urge. I think I could warm to that as an enticing future. (Thanks to the magnificent Bryan Appleyard for the pointer.)