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All around the world, people are coming together in
their localities to imagine and create new possibilities for their collective future.
Despite their differences in age, background and perspective,
what they share is a faith in community and in its civic spirit,
the idea that together, using our minds, hearts and hands, we can help to shape the world we live in.
Powerfully, perhaps unknowingly, they are the leaders of a new movement — a
movement of social imagination. .
“Imagine”- the word itself calls us to connect to
potential, wonder the power and the beauty of the unknown. It arouses within each of us feelings of
hope and opens a limitless space of creativity and possibility. Imagination is the realm of the future,
utterly democratic, not determined by current arrangements. As a movement, imagination draws upon
peoples’ deepest urge to be connected and to contribute to a larger purpose. It brings people together
meaningfully to talk and listen with one another, to share their personal and collective aspirations.
Such communion is generating the energy and commitment required for transforming dreams into
realities.
What makes imagination so important
today are the same factors that challenge it. Violence and terror, massive inequalities,
the widespread destruction of nature, the alienation of human beings from each other and from
themselves, the extinction of diverse languages, cultures and ways of meaning-making,
the colonization of images by mass media: these forces threaten human society, human
sensitivity and human sensibility at an unparalleled scale and pace.
Each and every human being possesses
the enormous gift of imagination. No matter what institutional authorities like the media,
market or schools tell us, imagination (like learning) is neither a commodity nor is it scarce.
In fact, the movement relies upon the power of our collective imagination.
Our tremendous human diversity is vital for both the conversations and the actions of creating a
positive future. The greater the diversity of the people involved, the stronger the movement of imagination,
and the more likely is the formation of a balanced and just future for our children and ourselves.
Like imagination itself, this movement has not been
planned or controlled, nor is it possible to. Rather, it is part of a growing culture of civic
spirit manifesting itself in a variety of forms: eco-cities, intentional communities, learning cities.
People all over the world are forming vital connections between being, thinking and doing, in order to
support a more just present and future.
Everyone can be a part of this movement.
All they have to do, is to give us a ‘piece of their minds’! Ahem, not literally.
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