Help us Collect Stories for a New Chapter
Our award-winning designs have helped the world experiment with taking permission to sit weird at work. But unquestioned cultural norms are still holding folks back from designing work around what our bodies need for a healthspan that lasts longer than our working years. Of course, it’s about more than how we sit. We’re searching for examples of work cultures that support resilient healthspans. What can you share with us that we may not yet know about? Do you feel like a disposable cog in your work? Is AI making what once felt secure feel precarious? We have enough faith in our shared creativity and the power of design to see these challenges as opportunities for demonstrating our best qualities as humans. As we face a precarious future, instead of sliding into those well-worn defaults of zero-sum thinking, fear, xenophobia, isolation, and self-harm, what are the alternatives available to us?
We’re proposing a different sort of prepper mindset. We may need to prep for the worst, but can we do it in a way that imagines the risk pool being all of us, not just those most likely to get through the looming bottlenecks? Let’s truly fend for ourselves — all of us — not simply the few who can fit in a rocket ship. We already inhabit a spectacularly beautiful spaceship we call Earth.
I’m not sure what this project will look like, because as many hands join in to make the work light, I’m sure what we can imagine together will get updated again and again. Will it begin as a hub of shared stories, a curated list of resources and organizations? A network unlike anything we’ve ever seen?
I admit that in the early days of COVID-19, I was one of those fearing we would retreat to our bunkers, shooting bullets to protect our stores of toilet paper. That particular bottleneck proved our shared humanity to be more resilient. I’m no longer grabbed by survivalist prepper fantasies of bug-out bags. Instead, I’m inspired by the examples all around of communities seeing the bigger picture. How many yet-to-be-told stories are out there of folks not waiting for permission to cobble together mutual aid networks? We can do this because we’re all born into a mutual aid network called humanity.
It occurs to me that we can repurpose a very old technology to expand our impulse to prep or freeze. The meditation on loving kindness might become a guide to expand our circle of care.:
May I be safe, healthy, and whole.
May my loved ones be safe, healthy, and resilient in the challenges ahead.
May my neighbors be safe, welcome, and welcoming as we navigate these bottlenecks together.
May my community share the future together even more generously than we now share the present.
May the nations echo the expanded hearts of their kaleidoscope of communities.
May the world dazzle us as the bottlenecks we encounter bring us closer and closer together. If a black hole has room for many stars, how much more space to dance will we have passing through these terrestrial bottlenecks?
Even the wealthiest preppers among us have to consider how to bring along the family of the pilot flying their getaway plane. Can the billionaire count on the pilot’s family being willing to leave behind their beloved pastor or friend? What if they insist on bringing their pets that may jeopardize deplaning on the island of New Zealand, the oligarchs’ preferred destination? Why not take the easy route and think things through? How about a visualisation that includes everyone from the start? One big resourceful risk pool. Going that route gives us much more to work with than simply what we can personally hoard. Now we’re back to the planet as a ship once again. Not so hard if we take the time to think things through with loving kindness.
Help us collect the stories that will inspire us to design long and resilient healthspans for all. Simply because no one lives their best life without others living theirs alongside. Leave a comment here or send us an email — hello@ikariadesign.com.