Project 2125

In what sense do we create our reality?

I always thought The Secret was B.S.

No shade, if that’s your thing. It’s just that I take the idea of manifesting seriously, but not literally. For example, it’s worse than useless to suggest to a sick or unfortunate person that they have magically brought some bad thing upon themselves. It’s a cruel pile-on, and blind to the structures that we are all, in different ways, subject to.

On the other hand. I have, over the years, many times experienced how we, collaboratively, shape our reality and our future, through the stories we tell ourselves, through what we spotlight and what we bury.

Parents, and everyone charged with raising children, absolutely do this. The Pygmalion Effect is the name for this type of self-fulfilling prophecy; the finding that, when teachers are told that children are gifted, the children can bloom under the the teachers’ expectations. And sadly, too often, vice versa.

And, I’ve experienced how it feels to ask for exactly what I want. The power of naming it. The thrill of envisioning it. The nerves and excitement of pitching my vision to the deciders, the powers that be. The vulnerability of sharing what I need from others to make it happen.

While we don’t want to spend too much time living in a daydream rather than the present, research suggests that making a concerted effort to set goals, envision positive future events in detail, and even develop an imaginative relationship with your future self, can combat depression and anxiety, fill us with purpose, and interrupt negative cycles of rumination.

Speaking of imagination, it’s been a wild ride these last few weeks in these centrifugal, disparate, Doppelganger States of America. Through news media, social media, and in millions of individual conversations, we collectively processed the fact that our leader physically could not speak for us the way we needed him to. Some people pushed for change, others defended the status quo, some spun out scenarios, some stood aside, and now we have a new candidate.

I don’t believe it’s just elites who made this happen. It feels to me like a collective effort to tell a new story. I’ve been particularly intrigued by, and optimistic about, the memefication and coconut-pilling that’s been going on — this exuberant outpouring of meaning-making from young people online. These are vibes, yes. And vibes can be powerful!

So. Now we have the first Black woman to clinch the Presidential nomination of a major US party (Thank you Shirley Chisholm forever. Born 100 years ago here in Brooklyn).

This is the first unprecedented thing I can remember happening in a long time that’s not bad.

And that makes me excited.

For my entire adult life, Democrats have tried to uphold public norms of decorum, stability, normalcy, while Republicans have done anything required, including making up their own facts, in order to win. They scoffed at us as “the reality-based community.”

-In 2000, when Al Gore dropped the fight and conceded to George W. Bush, even though it's pretty clear Gore should have won.

-In 2016, when President Obama nominated Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court and stood by and did nothing when McConnell blocked it--he reasoned that an incoming President Hillary Clinton would simply execute his choice, but that doesn't matter. McConnell broke norms and should have been stopped.

-In 2020, we nominated the most familiar, safest, least objectionable, most moderate candidate in a crowded field, reasoning that the nation and the world wanted stability most of all.

Which brings us here. Replacing Biden on the ticket at this late date is shocking and chaotic-feeling. And it's a huge departure. And that is scary.

But consider what else has to be done for the good of the country. Rescuing democracy, and responding skilfully to global climate chaos, requires more than defeating Donald Trump.

If we want real democracy and minority rights in this country, including basic human rights to health care for people with uteruses, and common sense gun safety, we need radical change to the Supreme Court, an end to the filibuster and reform of the deeply unrepresentative Senate, and reversal of the distastrous Chevron and Dobbs decisions by law or by court. The structure of our government currently prevents the manifest will of the people from being realized.

And, if we want a livable future we need to stop using fossil fuels. We need to restore biodiversity and continue the work of building new energy, transportation, manufacturing and food systems. (Harris was ahead of Biden on climate as a senator; it will be up to activists to make sure she stays there).

In aggregate, these changes add up to a constitutional refresh the size of Reconstruction, plus an infrastructure mobilization the size of World War II.

Could it be possible that the boldness of replacing Biden, chips something loose in us?

What if it frees our minds to ask for what we really, really want?

I choose to be inspired by the right-wing extremists who took the time and initiative to draft a 900 page plan for exactly how they want to dismantle what’s left of our democracy in order to destroy all the policies that protect people and the planet against the interests of rich people and Christian nationalists. I hate it, but I’m also impressed. Where is our plan?

What would you put in your Project 2125?

(By coincidence, I just had a call with the folks at Grist who run the Imagine 2200 fiction contest: stories that envision the next decades to centuries of equitable climate progress, imagining futures of abundance, adaptation, reform, and hope. )