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Positive News | Gavin Haines | August 29, 2023 | power of imagining | Shield Insurance Blog

The news is full of the catastrophic scenarios that could face humanity, but where are the heartening visions of the future we’re all longing for? Transition Town Network founder Rob Hopkins is on a mission to help us dream it into reality with the power of imagining.

Rob Hopkins has seen the future – and it’s glorious. You should see it too, he says. Smell it. Hear it. There are children playing in the street again. Deafening dawn choruses. Cycle lanes chocka with rush-hour traffic. Indie shops galore. Restaurants spilling onto streets. No homelessness. Oodles of civic pride. Crystal-clean rivers were rewilded by beavers. Community orchards. Pollen on the breeze. No fumes, no smog, just fresh air.

The year? 2030. Just seven years away. How did he get there? Well, the writer and activist has – whisper it – a time machine. It’s hidden in a secret laboratory under Totnes Castle in Devon, near to where he lives, along with a “disbelief suspender” and a “cynicism override”. At least that’s the yarn he spins when he’s invited to give talks on what he believes is a curiously underrated tool for tackling the climate and biodiversity crises: our imaginations.

The part of the brain associated with imagination is the hippocampus, which is also where our memories are stored. This may explain why fantasizing about the future, like recollecting past events, can be so evocative. Tapping into that is a powerful tool for driving positive change, reckons Hopkins. It gives people a hopeful vision to work towards, a longing, that breeds creativity and action, although he’s preaching to the converted – this ethos underpins our journalism.

Curious things happen when Hopkins gives his talks. People come up to him afterward and ask him, with no hint of sarcasm or cynicism, about the future, as though inquiring about a foreign city he’s just returned from. After a talk he gave to people in the sports sector recently, someone asked him if there would be many repair cafes in 2030.

“I said, ‘Well, I can answer that in a minute, but I just want to say that I love how you’ve suspended your disbelief to the point where you’re asking me that’,” he tells me, grinning.

That anecdote, says Hopkins, underscores his point, which is that we need to fire up our imaginations with creative storytelling.

Read the full story at Positive News about the power of imagining...

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