Center for the Study of Art and Community

Chapter 2: Responding to “How do you see the future?”

I greatly appreciate Milenko Matanovic’s use of the word “see” rather than “imagine” as applied to the future in the question he poses to each of us, “How do you see the future?” (emphasis added) The distinction between “seeing” and “imagining” the future, I believe, is critical.  As a way of understanding the distinction I looked for the definition of “imagination” and “see” in dictionaries for the two languages I think in:  English and ‘Olelo Hawai’i (the Hawaiian Language). 

Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition, defines “imagination” as, “1:  The act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never before wholly perceived in reality.” (emphasis added)  “See” was defined as, “1 a:  to perceive by the eye  b:  to perceive or detect as if by sight  2 a:  to have experience of:  undergo  b:  to come to know:  Discover.”

As described in the Hawaiian Dictionary (1971) by Mary Kawena Pukui and Samuel H. Elbert, the phrase for “imagination,” is:  “no’ono’o ulu wale,” literally, “thought growing by itself.”  I interpret this to mean a thought unrooted in reality.  The word for “see” is “`ike,” and in English its meaning is, “To see, know, feel, greet, recognize, understand; to know sexually (For:4:275); to receive revelations from the gods; knowledge, understanding, recognition, comprehension and hence learning; sense, as of hearing or sight ; vision.”

The difference between imagining the future and seeing the future is huge, especially to my Hawaiian mind.  As a way of concretely showing you how I see the difference, I would like to tell you a story about how the Po’e Hawai`i (the Hawaiian People) re-learned/remembered how to navigate over long distances without using modern navigational instruments, from our cousins from the Satawal Islands in Micronesia.  I will tell you the short version.

In 1976, Mau Pialug, a Master Navigator in the Traditional Way of navigating using the sea, wind, birds, rain, all the natural elements and revelations from the gods and from the na’au, the gut.  For Hawaiians, the na’au is the place where we think; it’s where the brain, the heart, come together below the piko (belly button) with experience and intuition and form our mana’o, our thoughts.  Although Hawaiians had navigated across thousands of miles of ocean for many centuries in the Traditional Way, we had forgotten in these modern times.  But the resolve to relearn was strong and thankfully Mau Pialug was a willing teacher.  As we learned, he taught, so that the art and science of this way of navigating, of seeing, could live, but not just for the Hawaiian People, but for his people as well.  We became the holders of this knowledge for future generations of Hawaiians, Micronesians, and other Native Peoples around the world. 

Mau’s first student was a young Hawaiian man, Nainoa Thompson, for whom the sea was a nest of comfort and learning.  See http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/tops/nainoa.html

One of the first exercises Mau taught him as a navigator involved seeing the island Nainoa was headed to, especially if he had never been there before.  Mau would stand with Nainoa at an ocean lookout and tell him, “Look.  See the island you are going to, especially if you’ve never been there before.  If you cannot see the island, you can never get there.”  Day after day, hour after hour, Nainoa would look beyond the horizon and see Tahiti clearly, ‘ike pono, until he knew where it was, its smell, taste, its nature.  Significantly, Mau never said, “Imagine the island where you are going to.”  Mau always said, “See the island.”  If you apply this lesson to the future, to see the future is to see something rooted in reality – the future as something you can see, taste, feel, describe, touch.  If you can see the future, you can get there. This is different from imaging the future, which is the “act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never before wholly perceived in reality.” (emphasis added)

In the process of seeing the future, I am looking all around me for those principles, practices and characteristics of people, economic and social development I want the future to embrace.  I’m taking notes about ordinary kindnesses that I want to be practiced in my future world and am starting to make it real by practicing it now.  For example, there is a young woman who attends many community development meetings and when she walks into the room, she immediately looks around for the kupuna (the elders, of every ethnicity) and goes to kokua (to help them by getting water or food or a comfortable chair up front where they can hear the discussion).  I am following her example. 

Another example, often at meetings, some one, will come to the meeting later than others and there is an older man who will go to that person and “make room” for him or her by telling her what has happened so far in the meeting. 

In the community I am part of, Wai`anae, on the western side of the Island of O’ahu, there are many groups of people re-establishing the growing and sharing of healthy food, children and families:  Ka’ala Cultural Learning Center, Hoa’Aina O Makaha, MA`O Farm . . . The future is all around us, I can see it.  What are you seeing?

I am very grateful to Milenko for asking the question and giving me the opportunity to reflect on this important question. 

 Aloha (Love and Respect)

 Puanani burgess

 

Chapter 1: How do you see the future?

Imagination is powerful. It guides our thoughts which in turn guide our actions. Imagination is the soil in which our ideas grow. Imagination is what allows our actions to change.

Images of the future crafted by people of the past are now our reality, just as current images of the future will shape tomorrow’s reality.  If we believe that to be true, we have an obligation to articulate and examine our images of the future.

Dutch futurist Fred Polak studied the importance of the image of the future.  His conclusion: 

The rise and fall of images of the future precedes or accompanies the rise and fall of cultures.  As long as the society’s image is positive and flourishing, the flower of culture is in full bloom.  Once the image begins to decay and lose its vitality, however, the culture does not long survive.

My interpretation of Polak’s words: Truly creative thinking about the future requires tension–the tension of holding both the real and the possible in our awareness at the same time. 

I believe our images of the future must be more than incremental improvements on the present; they must be daring and far-reaching. Polak called such a view the “other” future -- heretical in its newness, with the ability to broaden our thinking so that our lives are not limited by what is apparent and evident. If we can be so daring, we can willingly and eagerly participate in cultural change-making, rather than kick and scream when faced with the unfamiliar.

With disciplined imagination, an informed vision of what we, the people, want to be and do, change can be a joyful process. The American cultural philosopher William Irwin Thompson said that, like fly-fishers, “we cast images in front of ourselves and then slowly reel ourselves into them, turning them into reality.” To accomplish this, we need to examine and inform our imaginations, and share what we imagine with others. 

Our time is ripe for a thorough re-imagination of what the world will be when it grows up.  This is demanding and audacious work.  It takes courage to unpack one’s inner constructs and peer into assumptions and impulses that make us who we are. Seeing without distortion takes courage.  Every day, media and pop culture pound us with messages of who we should be and what we should do.  If we don’t contest these messages, we accept them – and consign ourselves to a lifeless repetition of the familiar.

What is my image of the future?  Here is how I described it in my recent book Multiple Victories:  

Future cities will be compacted into clearly defined neighborhoods that will be smaller and more densely populated than our sprawling suburbs and ex-urbs today.  These new cities and towns will combine the best of traditional urban design with modern mass transit and communication technologies . . . Offices, stores and restaurants, housing, parks and open spaces will all be within walking distance for the people who live there. Tentacles of restored land with healthy watersheds, river banks, ravines and hills will reach into the heart of the city, while clear boundaries will honor spaces in which farms and wild lands flourish and nurture the new metropolis.

As our resurgent cityscapes mature, architecture, cuisine and the arts will re-develop regional styles and celebrate local choices, resources and sensibilities.  

In this future, the differences between our cities become apparent and delightful. The joy of walking and the convenience of alternative transportation will diminish the need for the single-passenger automobile, reduce its infrastructure and restore a human scale to the cityscape.   

An increasingly ”walkable” environment will allow us to cluster our important civic institutions, such as, the city hall, library, and museums, shopping and work. As a result, more and more people will find themselves drawn to the middle of our new town where they will also find a beautiful, intentional space where they feel welcome to put up their feet, play games or discuss the matters of the day. This space, the community’s gathering place, is the heart for communal identity, welcome, and social rejuvenation.  Every neighborhood will build such a space where people create together something that captures their collective talents, their aspirations and their appreciation of the many community connections.

This image flows from my own imagination, shaped by an increasingly urgent imperative: Stop waste! We must stop wasting our time, creativity, learning opportunities. We must stop wasting our health, community, local democracy, our useful differences, character and identity. We must stop wasting the innocence of the young and wisdom of the elders. We must end planned obsolescence and stop wasting our natural gifts of air, water, soil and the creatures that live around us. If we can muster the strength to do this, we can bring about a speedy transformation of our urban, social and natural landscapes. With courage and commitment, we can develop solutions that address these issues coherently and solve multiple problems at once. If we can come together to create such solutions, we can reverse the current trend of multiplying problems and bring about, ultimately, a world that will not need constant remediation.

I have my own library of mental images that inform my imagination and shape this vision. What do you see? What sorts of patterns or themes? What images of the future spring from your own imagination? 

Milenko Matanovic

January 14, 2010

Issaquah, WA