Suppose...

Suppose that we have (and have access to) a collective unconscious, a kind of group soul, that not only includes the individual, the family, the tribe or nation or ethnic group, and the whole human race, but also the animal, vegetable and inorganic? We do share genes with most of that list, layers of our brains with much of it, and we are both nourished by and made up of the elements of the rest. Several prominent Jungian theorists (like '>Edward Edinger and '>Marie Louise von Franz, and perhaps Jung himself) believe we might.

Suppose we are in constant contact and communication with everyone and everything? There are '>many people now wondering if our concepts of time, space, matter, energy and being aren't too narrow for what we're now learning about physics, mind-body connections and the realms we classify and demonize as psychic. Ecology keeps telling us of our interdependence, but maybe the connections are even more profound than we yet conceive.

These are the big ideas, the re-shaping of our conceptual framework that is all part of dreaming up the future.

Then there are the broad ideals and principles that may allow us to reach that future. And the stories and images that help us figure out what kind of future we want.

Then there are the acts of practical idealism: the changes, the creative efforts, that move us towards a better future by solving problems and helping people. The daily work that makes its contribution.

There is the analysis of the problems, and the synthesis of the comprehensive approach. There is the on-the-ground work, innovation, experiment, yielding successes that may now seem "large" or "small," even though that judgment can't reasonably made for a long time, as change ripples out, and the people who have a better life as a result make their own contributions.

It's all part of dreaming up the future, daily. And because it's happening now, it's dreaming up the present as well.

I hope this will become more evident as the focus here, as time goes on. For now, let's begin with some practical idealism: a UN program to apply knowledge on a local scale to a current problem that is only going to get worse: water.

I have no idea whether this program, this technology, is actually that helpful. But it seems like an honorable attempt.