Imagine watching a film that takes you to a point and then leaves the ending open for you to imagine…it’s up to you to decide how the story ends. This might feel frustrating at first, but it offers you the gift of deciding where to take the narrative. It leaves you with an endless array of possibilities to choose from and that’s ok.
In the Covid-19 era that we are living in, it’s a time for us to get comfortable with the big unknown and maybe even take comfort in it too.
I found great inspiration in my recent chat with Futurist and Cultural Innovator Adah Parris who reminded me that it’s ok if we don’t know how it’s all going to end.
We think we always need to have solid plans with a clear end in sight, but by saying “it’s ok not to know the end”, we open up new pathways, we give ourselves the power to create a myriad of possible endings. We can write new stories, we can take more risks, we can be playful, we can stop and take time to reflect and connect the dots.
Adah Parris passionately believes we can all innovate, because “innovation is problem-solving” and each one of us has the ability to problem-solve. In our beautiful conversation, Adah talked about cyborg shamanism and the need for us to “emphatically subvert the status quo” and to engage in “collective storytelling”, putting the wheels in motion for widespread cultural innovation and action on social inclusion.
It’s time to awaken our inner-activists and to find ways to move us to build our own imagined future.
For the full interview, tune in to E9 of the Grandkids Test podcast.