After Trump was elected last week, I have seen people discussing how this fits into a larger trend and says something about the future.
Some think we are headed into an age of sustainability, inclusivity, and progressive values, and Trump is part of the backlash from a dying and losing mindset.
Some think Trump is a sign of the erosion and dying of democracies, and that the age of democracies was a brief blip in history.
Some think we’ll continue much as before with the usual cycles between right and left.
Some see it as part of a divergence in the US and the world, with some states and countries moving in a progressive direction and some in a more authoritarian and regressive direction. That’s how the world has been for a long time, and it may be even more so with the internet’s echo chambers.
It’s interesting and perhaps even helpful to explore and be aware of these different scenarios. And that’s what they are. They are imaginations about the future, nothing else. They may be more or less rooted in studies, analysis, historical patterns, and so on, and they are still imaginations.
They are not the future. We can’t know anything for certain about the future.
We may invest energy into one of these scenarios and fuel our hopes or fears that way, and that’s a way to find an illusion of safety. We tell ourselves we know how it’s going to be, and that may seem more comfortable than acknowledging that we cannot know.
In my experience, it’s far more comfortable to (a) recognize these scenarios as imaginations, (b) acknowledge that I cannot know, and (c) stay receptive and curious.
What I know is that I can imagine the world I want to live in and live that in my own life.
I am doing it in my own very small way with the food forest and the regeneration and reforestation project, building with local materials and traditional methods, exploring and living from more life-centered worldviews, and so on. And there is always further to go.
It’s always about what I can do and what I am living here and now.
The photo is from our garden.