Stepping into a universe of possibility (Continuing sessions on the theme).
Maybe two decades ago, I first read The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life by Rosamund and Benjamin Zander. I loved – and still recommend this book, and it succinctly re-minded me of some of the core awakening principles from my experiences with est and Landmark courses. And if you haven’t personally experienced these, you might be excused for not realizing how powerfully est impressed these ideas into our culture through hundreds of thousands of participants over nearly 50 years. A beautiful summary of the Zanders’ ideas can be found at Vishnu Virtues.
I know that our recent years have led to a societal grinding sense of tangible decline, a loss of hope and faith in our own futures, and a loss in our ability to regenerate our own cultures following such a loss of trust and respect. Many people have struggled with depression and health, and I worry that we risk losing our ability to self-organize for “pragmatic possibility” of cultural cocreation.
Now I propose we initiate an ongoing inquiry into the possibility of possible futures. To me, this is a core question in foresight that we never really answer.
- How do we create the space in our own minds and relationships (in speaking and listening) from which we can reveal possibility for ourselves and others?
- How can we learn to bring forth “conversations for possibility” that evoke a future we are living into? What ability or self-awareness is at the source of this intervention?
- What happens when the possible – becomes possible?
- How might we expand the horizon of the possible over the range of futures in our own prospection?
In a 3-hour dialogue we explored these propositions through open-ended questions. Such as:
What if you could declare that there was “no such problem” as the ones we hold as concerning?
So What? What if there was nothing to worry about, or complain about? How would this occur?
We drew on foresight exercises to deepen the exploration, including: Joe Voros’ Four P Futures, and Stuart Candy’s Thing from the Future.
Thanks to Patricia for the beautifully captured sketchnote of some of the compelling themes