Searching for Utopian Moments
I'm not good at future building
Hello, Stargazers!
What if we could find small moments of utopia in our lives every day?
keep your flying cars
I want a dark quiet night
where I can see stars
Searching for Utopian Moments
I have almost a half-century of experience in failing to execute my plans for a better future.
The problem is the future isn’t real. The future exists only in our imaginations. Trying to control that future is a little like trying to predict the spot a fly will land next. If you take enough guesses, you will eventually get something right. However, any pattern to the fly, or the future, is completely inscrutable.
A lesson I have slowly, and painfully, learned over the past ten years or so is that life is much more pleasant if I enjoy the small utopian moments.
Whenever I can see the constellations and planets at night, I have found a slice of utopia. The peace of a dark, quiet night is something you will never get from an app, algorithm, or AI chatbot.
Utopian moments abound. Catching sight of a hummingbird, a sunny day after weeks of rain, a hug, a wildflower in an unexpected place, the sound of a red-tailed hawk screeching a warning, and having someone in line ahead of me pay for my drink are just some of the bits of utopia I experience regularly.
What if the only way to build a utopia is to fully immerse yourself in the bits of utopia that already exist in your life? The ideal future is built in the present. Each moment you notice the sublime becomes a building block for the future you hope for.
Artist Note
is writing utopian fiction and asking what do we want the future to look like in her excellent newsletter, . Her posts have given me a lot to think about. I actually have an entire series of haiku called dystopia/utopia, where I ponder the possibilities for our planet and its inhabitants. Today’s haiku is part of that series. I wrote this poem on March 6, 2020, when the future was very much on my mind. As much as I love futurism, the healthiest thing for me is to keep my mind in the present and look for small, daily moments of utopia.
Be the weird you want to see in the world!
Cheers,
Jason
This is a great exercise for staying in the moment. I’m excellent at future-tripping but living in the now takes work.
I love this one--the haiku and your meditation on it. Actually, I found them to be a bit of utopia for me. I'd add to you list (which is obviously not exhaustive) one of my favorites--the hooting of owls at night. It transports me to a deeper place. Thank you for this.