The AfterFuture & Tough Times

On Dreaming Out Beyond the Troubles of Today

Sep 07, 2022

The Milky Way shines brightly over a tree-covered mountainous area. A highway runs through the mountains in the shape of a “u”. There is a golden shine to the road and the stars.The Milky Way shines brightly over a tree-covered mountainous area. A highway runs through the mountains in the shape of a “u”. There is a golden shine to the road and the stars. — Image by EvgeniT on Pixabay

I've been playing around with a gigantic playlist I’ve been dropping music into for over a decade. It’s called Dreaming of the Afterfuture. It’s not a phrase I coined; Blackalicious did in 2002.

The first time I heard the phrase I was in the parking lot of a Jersey Diner in the dead of winter in the middle of the night during the Great Recession.

I was newly graduated at 30 with $10Ks in student debt alongside a lot of early millennials who also had their hands up in the air.

My fiancé (now husband) and I were in that parking lot because we were trying to grab a toehold back up North. Opportunities were slim-to-none back home in Miami.

Rolling over the idea of the AfterFuture took me out beyond the conditions of that time. I had a good idea what to expect out of the near future: struggle, fear, risk, faith, courage.

But what was after that future?

The AfterFuture.

Something else. Something open. Something the imagination could run wild with.

The Milky Way appears as spiral galaxy behind a far away mountain range at night. The stars are brilliantly bright and light up the sky around it in shades of cool blue. — Image by Juskteez Vu at Unsplash

So I made a playlist and started dropping tracks into it. This is a way I simmer on ideas. By pulling music together around an inspirational phrase and then sitting to listen.

The AfterFuture for me was space exploration into the strange, wild open of the cosmos. Both because I grew up loving space and because imagining Earth’s future was too emotionally difficult at the time.

Years later, the pragmatic environmental possibilities that Solarpunk dreams for Earth got me back down to the ground. It gave me a guide to dream about a sustainable future and to pick up real-life beginnings of this possible future in our time.

As we go through rapid changes today, this practice of looking forward, far forward, helps me stay sane. I can get out beyond tough times.

Out to a place where today’s precious seeds of clean energy, environmental regeneration, fair economic practices, cultural peacemaking and democratic strengthening have grown and come together. Not perfectly but well-enough to be beyond the fragile position we are in today.

I can dream out to Earth’s regenerative afterfuture…then take a good walk in outer space.

How do you (or could you) dream out beyond tough times?

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