There Was An Idea…
The Tomorrow People Initiative (Part 2)
“The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people, to see if they could become something more. To see if they could work together when we needed them to. To fight the battles we never could.”
— Nick Fury, The Avengers
What would you do if you could assemble a group of remarkable people?
What kinds of things would you work on? What problems would you solve? How would you choose to spend your time and use your skills? What kinds of values would you hold?
How would you even assemble and organize this group of remarkable people in the first place? What exactly would it take to keep them working together? And for that matter, what is it exactly that makes someone remarkable?
These are questions I’ve been asking myself for a long time for two main reasons.
First, it’s difficult to ignore the massive shift in people’s mindsets that’s been happening in recent years. The way culture and ideas have the ability to spread now is both completely unprecedented in the history of humanity, and simultaneously just the latest step in the long journey of how humanity harnesses and interacts with information. What this translates to is immense power to transform both the world and ourselves in ways that are hard to predict or even envision. And if we aren’t mindful of how we channeling this newfound power affects us, it can and will lead to our demise. Both individually and collectively.
“With great power comes great responsibility” — Uncle Ben, Spiderman
That’s a quote worth remembering.
And second, I’ve been so lucky to be surrounded by incredibly talented and driven people my entire life. I’m talking about people who outclass me in every dimension of life, and who push me to learn more, work harder, and strive to be better than I was yesterday. I’ve seen firsthand talented people accomplish wonders when they work together towards common goals. Things that I would never have believed were possible as a child are now a reality because of the dedicated efforts of organizations of individuals. People that came together as a team and amplified each other’s strengths and mitigated each other’s weaknesses.
If COVID19 has taught me anything, it’s that things can get very bad, very quickly. We’re going through very chaotic and uncharted times and we’re not even sure if we’ll look back at these as the worst of times, or the best of times compared to what’s coming.
There’s no law of physics that states the future only gets brighter. Whether or not it does, comes down to how well we can all work together, and what systems we put in place to build and maintain harmony.
But organizing people is hard. The right systems don’t just build themselves. They take consistent, thoughtful, and intentional actions of individuals.
Incentives need to be aligned and structured. Communication and boundaries between individuals need to be clear. Shared culture, goals, and beliefs need to be defined and developed to build community identity. And this process needs to constantly be iterated and reiterated upon because groups grow and change in unpredictable ways. But that unpredictability is also a part of their evolution and can be harnessed to effect necessary change. Any system, even one built with good intentions, can become oppressive and overly restrictive and then need to be redesigned to accommodate new realities and paradigms.
Because if the individuals in a system change, there’s no reason to think that system can or should stay the same.
But as I write this, I don’t want to sound like I think it’s all doom and gloom. I’m not a nihilist and I don’t only see a road full of hard work ahead. I’m generally hopeful and see a future full of possibilities.
It’s fun to speculate about what kind of culture and rituals we could develop over time as a more unified and global society. What happens when different styles of art, cuisine, music, film, philosophies, and practices start to mix and intermingle? How many discoveries, perspectives, and states of being remain to be explored and experienced? What would a truly global community look like? Could we eliminate violence, want, and disease? Can we unlock the secrets of the cosmos and our own minds?
That’s the part I’m most excited about. Developing new ideas with people who are both very similar and completely different than me. Exercising my curiosity and creativity with new tools and modes of thinking. Pushing the limits of what’s possible and building a deeper understanding of our reality.
The rabbit hole is infinite. If I listed all the topics I want to do a deep dive into, this post would never end. Instead, I’ll share a video that still gives me chills to give you a sense of what I think we can accomplish if we figure out how to work together.
So those are the stakes.
And I’ll end this post with two ancient proverbs to summarize the “WHY” of this initiative.
“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.”
“We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children”
So let’s plant some trees together for the people of tomorrow.
