Holding Out For Visions of the Future
Creative burnout x Reasons to re-imagine what's possible
This is the light of autumn; it has turned on us.
Surely it is a privilege to approach the end
still believing in something.—Louise Gluck, October
Dear friend,
So:
October's been kicking my ass a little bit, though I'm glad to report the cheap doughy earplugs I've started using have helped me steal a few more minutes of sleep (salamat Shopee!). As I write this, I realize I may have dragged myself from the edge of work burnout—as if suddenly having insomnia wasn't an obvious enough symptom, this coming from the girl who's slept through earthquakes, typhoons, and the occasional house break in (note: we are okay! I think).
I can feel its residual fog clinging to my bones, in the heaviness of my eyes and my own thoughts. But it is November, and I take comfort in the way the days are turning cold, as it to signal: look, the rest of the world is heading that way, too. Outside, our rambutan tree is blooming in its perfect season, Goldilocks-sweet. I thank past Andy for listening to my body's request for rest, and my grandfather for his faith, planting that tree 6 years ago when our garden was nothing but hard, difficult earth.
Do you have pets? We adopted a poodle named Cola, a surprise gift for my lola who lives alone in the province and started expressing a kind of profound loneliness that is difficult to shake. My lola’s stubborn, won't move in with us, says it's too crowded. We visit often instead. I’ve been wondering how my life will look like at that age. If I'll need a puppy to help me remember the gift of my hands, but the future is too flimsy to grasp.
These days, it's harder to think of things too far ahead—Halalan 2022, the Philippines on the other side of COVID, how soft and wrinkled my friends and I will look with age. Every day my day job demands: imagine, imagine, imagine. What's the plan? How does this story end? I had to put my personal chapbook-in-progress on pause, because my brain at the end of a work day felt like an over-steeped tea bag. No aroma. Just sad lumpy dregs.
I know it’s not just me. On top of everything, it's tough to be in an imagination crisis, too. But every day I realize how crucial it is to push past the fog and insist in being in community with other people. People who demand something else. People who demand more than leftovers.
"We should acknowledge that most people are forced to live inside someone else’s imagination! This means that for those of us who want to construct a different social reality, one grounded in justice and joy, we can’t only critique the world as it is, we have to work on building the world as it should be.”
– Professor Ruha Benjamin addresses Columbia University’s School of Social Work 2020 graduates.
Right now, a select few at the top are envisioning and building a future for us that is "largely dystopian and undemocratic" viewing us as "consumers rather than citizens with agency," writes Ted Fickes of Narrative Initiative. They are dreaming up a version of this story where there is no room for life, abundant and joyfully lived.
Maybe that explains my appetite for the speculative these days. Fanfiction, explosive flash, to the sprawling multiverses of fantasy, in comics to games to KPop music videos—I’ve been devouring them all. I stopped reading non-fiction; for a while, I just couldn’t. I needed a door to disappear into.
Daryll Delgado in a panel for the 26th Heights Writers Workshop describes stories as "portals.” They can transport us to our shared history. They can also point us towards our alternative futures. Through stories, we find ways to resist, reclaim, and survive.
"Imagination opens up our field of vision so we see beyond today. Most people operate inside a Cone of Probability. The future is based on what seems probable given our history. Futures work starts (perhaps unsurprisingly) in the future and works back from there."
—Ted Fickes of Narrative Initiative.
I am so deeply nourished by the work of Narrative Initiative, Greenpeace, Agam Agenda, and so many more who are gathering people at the forefront of environmental and societal disrepair and creating a space where they can reclaim their story.
We cannot build a future we have no memory of. Alternatively, we are doomed to repeat our past mistakes if we don't learn our histories (and that's a whole other banana altogether). We will need to work a little harder to step outside ourselves, to listen, to radically re-imagine and co-create the world we need today.
As I struggle in my own cold bog of grief, disillusionment, and anger, I turn to all the elders, grassroots organizers, climate activists, all the book clubs and poetry readings, the discord servers with exchanged kamustahans, the community pantries and campaigns—all collectively insisting: there’s something better than this. You can’t see it yet, but can’t you feel it? All its possibility, widening around us?
What's on the shelf
”I love my creative life more than I love cooperating with my own oppression.” Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes is a gorgeous, soul-affirming read that is helping me reconnect with my creative core again through myths and tales on womanhood from all around the world. At times, it subscribes a little too much with the gender-binary IMO, but generally recommended if you need a little healing like me.
Never Have I Ever by Isabel Yap, a collection of speculative short stories inspired by Philippine folklore and legends. The version of the Philippines in these pages is compelling, tinged with dark fantasy, but never shies away from lived realities like the drug war and queerness. Here’s an excerpt, feat. a manananggal:
"So what's your deal?" Sara asks, as Kaye peels off her shoes and socks and sticks her feet into the slippers.
"I eat fetuses," Kaye replies. "If I feel like it, I eat organs, too."
10 years to save the world, a comic art anthology in response to the climate crisis. Here’s one of my favorites, from Emilia Kampilan.
When I was reading up on counter-narratives, a colleague linked me to Stories for Life. I don’t know how else to describe it other than that it’s a narrative toolkit to help anyone tell stories on interconnection, love, and a re-design for healthier economy. 100/10 would recommend.
Other fun detours
#FutureWeFightFor, a series of events hosted by Greenpeace and Frailty Myths to engage people in a “radical imagining” of what’s possible. Here are five lessons they’ve learned on this process.
When is Now, a global creative collaboration for urgent climate action. I am so enthralled by their idea of poetry as “seeds” - encouraging artists to create upon other people’s contributions on the platform, threading a web of solidarity all around the world.
Lore, a poem I wrote on revision, representation, and archives.
”In this version / we grow roots deep enough to touch motherland / Nothing that moves here will bite / I braid our endings / into brilliant beginnings / & the earth yields us her treasures: / my hands / a house before flowers / land so luminous / like nothing has yet died in it / & no one will ever say / too much; you can want / but only up to here ]”
As part of my practice to re-imagine the future, I am joining Flash Nano this November with friends! 30 short stories in 30 days. Sheesh. I am. So ready. Join us?
This free Udemy course I produced with makesense Philippines, to help organizations, social innovators, and anyone at all who wants to help make social impact more common sense through storytelling.
This week-long global event from November 11-18 for urgent climate action. It’s 7 days of workshops, creathons, webinars, brainstorming sessions, and all sorts of activities to showcase the incredible power of citizen mobilization.
Last month I tweeted, “do poets record time lapses of them writing? is that a thing?” and my moot provided, linking me to Midst - tell me this isn’t the coolest thing you’ve ever seen???
Thank you for reading. I wish you all a great start to November 💜
Andy