narrative change

Stories are thought experiments that cut through contemporary interests and structures to imagine an alternative world. Stories help us understand the current system but also provide the tools to investigate how that world is changing and reveal solutions to work to a different futures.

Many of us have clear visions of what kind of world we don’t want to live in, but are struggling to imagine the kind of world we would live in - let alone how to build that world. We need new narratives to illuminate what’s broken in our society and hands-on solutions for a more sustainable, equal and resilient world.

What beliefs keep the system in place? And what new narratives could change or replace the system?

Or, as illustrated by one of my all-time favorite quotes:

*“The task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen; but to think what nobody has yet thought about that which everybody sees.”

*Erwin Schödinger

The narrative that art or creativity isn’t real work (as described below) is just one element of a much bigger discussion about what is considered and adequately valued as “real work” in today's society and economic system and what isn’t. As I wrote in Aliveness: Reframing Productivity: “We don’t really think of productivity as a measure of being

A value system is fostered through storytelling and negotiation in forums of public discourse.

Throughout the last few decades, our economic system has transformed society into a market, citizens into consumers, and communities into individuals