Everywhere I look, the future seems filled with disaster. In movies, novels, television series, and even public discourse, we are constantly presented with images of collapse: environmental catastrophe, technological domination, endless wars, social breakdown, and human suffering. The future has become a place of fear. Many of our writers have accepted dystopia as the future and publish realms.

I often wonder why, and as a result have withdrawn from certain things to nurture my spirit.  I no longer listen to the news, read the newspaper or those magazines/journals that scandalize and promote discord.  I am very content staying home, tending to my plants and protecting my spirit from the constant harassment  and negativity of what is mostly doom. Yes, you can say I am living in my own bubble.

However, I invite you to interrogate why so many of our stories assume that humanity is destined for destruction? Why do we find it easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine a world that is healthy, balanced, and peaceful?

I believe part of the answer lies in the worldview we have inherited. Much of contemporary thinking about the future comes from a Western model shaped by conquest, competition, and accumulation. For centuries, European powers colonized vast regions of the world, extracting resources, enslaving people, and imposing systems that prioritized profit over human well-being. That history has left a deep imprint on how many of us think about progress, power, and even survival. This is not a universal worldview.

The dominant story tells us that there is never enough. Someone must win and someone must lose. Resources must be controlled. Wealth must be accumulated. Nature exists to be exploited. Monsters and gigantic creatures or aliens are coming to destroy our world and wipe us out. Within such a framework, it is not surprising that the future appears bleak.

But this is not the only way human beings have understood the world. Across Africa, among Indigenous peoples, and within many traditional societies, there have long existed philosophies rooted in community, reciprocity, and respect for the natural world. These traditions remind us that human beings are interconnected, that the health of one depends on the health of all, and that the earth is not merely a commodity but a living source of sustenance and wisdom. Many will say I am a foolish optimist, that a harmonious future is naïve. But I beg to differ.

What would happen if we allowed these ideas to guide our imagination and our actions? What if we did not allow the crooks and the greedy to rule? What if we were to adjust and accept and implement a different paradigm?

What if we envisioned a future where communities shared resources rather than hoarded them? What if we imagined cities designed around human well-being instead of endless consumption? What if we taught our children that cooperation is as valuable as competition? What if we honoured rivers, forests, oceans, and animals as partners in our survival rather than obstacles to profit?

I am not suggesting that such a future would be perfect. Human beings will always face challenges. There will always be disagreements, uncertainties, and difficult choices. But difficulty does not have to lead to destruction. Conflict does not have to result in domination.

The future can be something other than doom.  What if the future is not something to survive, but something to heal?  What if our stories prepared us not for collapse, but for cooperation? What if writers became architects of possibility rather than prophets of doom?

As writers, artists, educators, and thinkers, we have a responsibility to expand the boundaries of possibility. The stories we tell shape the worlds we create. If we continually imagine catastrophe, we may unconsciously and consciously  move toward it. But if we dare to imagine balance, justice, healing, and collective flourishing, we begin to create a blueprint for another way of living. Radical Hope must be our Creative Practice.

I believe such a future is possible. In January after Hurricane Mellisa decimated the banana/plantain and other crops, I decided to play twenty plantain suckers.  Now they are way taller than me, in the space of six month, and will yield plantains in another three to four months. I didn’t just imagined, I acted.

The question is whether we are willing to imagine a more uplifting future, and work towards ensuring its possibility. I am, and I invite you to join me… to breathe in and honour the vast beauty that surrounds us and let that be our focus.