Sparks

If you want to re-think how we're going to approach this crisis of climate change, it seems to me that the way we've been doing things, or the way we imagine we can change things is not working.  So, the avenues for picturing what could work, we have to establish these, we have to create the spaces where that can occur. 

Gal Beckerman 

This, in a nutshell, is the premise behind the Thrutopia Masterclass that I am so fortunate to have found my way onto.  Dystopian futures, due to the amount written about them, are easily imagined and can evoke the reaction of  'might as well enjoy ourselves now'.  Utopian futures are so far out of reach and increasingly unbelievable.  Thrutopias on the other hand are, in the words of Professor Rupert Reed who coined the phrase, about how to live and love and vision and carve out a future, through pressed times that will endure.

Thus it was that a week last Sunday I found myself begin an adventure with a hundred or so other creatives buying into the belief of Rob Hopkins, our first guest speaker and author of From What Is to What If, that we need imagination, music, poetry, art and storytelling to create longing, as it is this, and not graphs about climate change, that will encourage people to change their behaviours.  Inspired, yet slightly daunted by the enormity of what lies ahead and my ability to contribute meaningfully, I was unsure what to expect in the second part of the evening or how it would leave me feeling.  

The writing task - develop (at speed) a character and narrative in which they live - whisked me straight back to the creative writing class I had attended earlier this year, and all the feelings of 'I can't do this!' that went with it, but I persevered, if a little disappointedly, with my middle aged woman doing the grocery shopping at some point in the future, not at a supermarket but at space selling locally grown produce run by a community collective.  The shop was lifted straight from one of Rob's slides, the middle aged women bit, well no prizes for guessing who she was modelled on.  Then, split into groups of four, we were given 20 minutes to fill the others in on the complexities (or otherwise!) of our chosen characters and combine all four stories into one - nightmare! Or rather a stroke of genius. There is no way to combine four completely disparate stories without a lot of 'What if' statements flying around.  

And so, within the space of a few minutes my middle aged shopper, Robert the eco-house dweller, an American woman fighting to save beach erosion, and a rat were indeed incorporated into the same story - and we were buzzing! Riding high on the wave of collective creativity.  For the purpose of the exercise it didn't matter whether the story was any good, what mattered was the freeing of the imagination needed to create it. For the first time in a long time I felt a sense of possibility, and I came away from the class feeling more alive, connected, energised and, most importantly, optimistic.

If four strangers from across the world can produce this much energy in a breakout room on Zoom what could we achieve if we really put our minds to it? Yet therein lies the problem, we cannot think our way out of this.

It was Albert Einstein who deduced that 'You cannot solve a problem from the same consciousness that created it. You must learn to see the world anew.'  We need these creative play spaces, especially as, for a variety of reasons, imagination is in decline just at the point when it is needed most.   We need to flex our creative muscles and build back our imaginations, be adventurous and expand our minds, walk new paths and take in different views.  The question is how?  

For me, the answer lies in cultivating the feeling that the creative brainstorming brought alive in me.  When have I felt that before? What was I doing? Who was I with? And, without a shadow of a doubt, it is connected with spontaneity.  

That feeling when Mr L and I set out on a whim to pastures new is the same feeling I get thinking 'Sod it! The jobs can wait' and going to join my friends on a cinema trip.  It's in the smile that creeps across our faces when we decide to get takeaway for tea, despite there being food in the house already.  It's the air of excitement in picking up a message at midnight and deciding to set my alarm for four hours later so I can run with a friend to watch the Beltane sunrise and find Morris Dancers there, celebrating too.  It's that rush of energy when the Tube train breaks down and my only option is to hit the streets and run to the hotel to get my bags in time to catch my connecting train, grateful that I'm already in my running kit post parkrun.  It's found in the joy of spending the day on an 11 mile hike with three friends and two dogs, filled with adventure and obstacles and 18 hundred feet of elevation gain, breaking one dog half way round and wanting to lie down on the ground next to him, but keeping on going because actually I'm having fun and laughter is the best medicine, even though I know at the end of the walk my reward is to drive on a single track road that defies gravity with hairpin bends and oncoming traffic to negotiate, wishing my car had 'please don't make me reverse' written on the bonnet, that thankfully is not needed.

These are the moments that we need, the ones that spark something within - because it is in these moment where we say 'Yes!' 'Why not!' 'Shall we?!' - that we learn the feeling that anything is possible.