A on embracing uncertainty while still promoting individual & collective agency in creating & designing reality. 1st, it’s important to understand the perceived dichotomy: creating/designing could suggest human control vs. the vast unpredictability of complex emergence. 1/n

This is definitely true IF we assume a narrative of human separation/dominance over natural systems - a story that runs deep through our current religious, governmental & economic systems. In reality, humans are a part of nature, intertwined w/ its unfolding complexity. 2/n

If we promote a different narrative, one that sees humanity as part of nature - dependent on and flowing with nature - then we have the underpinnings of very different approaches to governance, economics and social constructs. 3/n

Now we are no longer talking top down creativity/design, but rather co-creative realities, working alongside, responding & taking our cue from nature’s complex emergence. But this still assumes that the property of emergence is a type of purposeful creativity/ design. Is it? 4/n

Certainly, the arrow of evolutionary emergence begins w/ competition and matures toward collaboration, both characteristics of creative complexity rather than random chaos. (Of course, even chaos theory suggests patterns, fractals, self-organization.) 5/n

So, humans are part of a nature that thrives off of creative complexity, and as such we are meant to dance in co-creation to welcome emergent realities of transformation, higher order purpose and non-linear novelty. 6/n

This is important as we must be wary of trend analysis as a means to predictive outcomes. Our goal as co-creators w/ the rest of nature is to recognize complex emerging realities that evolve & transform our practices, models, constructs. That’s futures literacy. 7/7