A Million Tomorrows: Playful Imaginings and Beautiful Futures

Abstract: This poem was part of a series for my second-year Culture and Technology Studies course, CTS*2010: Digital Approaches to Culture. Over the course of the semester, I explored the position of microchips in our political economy and the part they play in our future-building. Through my research, it became clear that microchips have an integral role in our digital development, and that the systems in which they are used and developed are deeply integrated into the fabric of the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. Inspired by the exploration of 'low theory' by Judith Jack Halberstam and Steven Johnson's description of 'the adjacent possible', this piece asserts the role of radical imagination in decoupling technology from systems of oppression.

A Million Tomorrows:

Playful Imaginings and Beautiful Futures

Kurhula Mbetse

Introduction

This poem was part of a series for my second-year Culture and Technology Studies course, CTS*2010 Digital Approaches to Culture. Over the course of the semester, I explored the position of microchips in our political economy and the part they play in our future-building. Through my research, it became clear that microchips have an integral role in our digital development, and that the systems in which they are used and developed are deeply integrated into the fabric of the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. I believe that the decoupling of technology from systems of oppression relies first on radical imagination.

This piece is therefore inspired by Steven Johnson’s account of the adjacent possible - “a kind of shadow future, hovering on the edges of the present state of things, a map of all the ways in which the present can reinvent itself”¹– and the assertion by pacifist scholar Elsie Boulding that “the sheer difficulty of imagining future sustainability different from the present is one of our greatest problems as a society”². To explore this idea, I drew from the work of queer academic Judith Jack Halberstam and their idea of ‘low theory’ and the silly archive (2012; 2014)³⁴. I chose particularly to look at the potential of children’s stories to imagine alternative futures.

¹ Steven Johnson, “Serendipity,” Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation, 35–54, New York: Riverhead Books, 2010.

² Elise Boulding, Building a Global Civic Culture: Education for an Interdependent World, New York: Teachers College Press, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1988.

³ Judith Halberstam, “Losing Hope, Finding Nemo and Dreaming of Alternatives,” Queer and Subjugated Knowledges: Generating Subversive Imaginaries, vol. 1, no. 1, 9–22, 2012, https://doi.org/10.2174/978160805339111204010009.

⁴  IPAK Centar, Jack Halberstam on Queer Failure, Silly Archives and the Wild, YouTube video, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKDEil7m1j8.

Halberstam argues that children’s media, a form of ‘low theory’, can be a powerful source of revolutionary content, and help us to imagine alternative futures and ways of being (2014)⁵. For me, thinking about this immediately brought to mind Dr. Seuss, a staple on the bookshelves of me and many others. Stories like The Lorax, Thidwick the Big Hearted Moose, and Horton Hears a Who! all strongly resonate with this theme for me, and even the graduation classic Oh, the Places You’ll Go! emphasizes the expansive possibility that lies in the future.

Through all of these inspirations, I wrote and recorded a Dr. Seuss-inspired children’s poem about the adjacent possibility that exists in the technology we build and the world we move towards.

A Million Tomorrows

There’s a place near your town,

not too far ways away.

If you got going at sunrise

you'd be there by midday.

In that place lives a being.

Not from there, not not,

the same way that you are from more than one spot.

⁵ IPAK, Jack Halberstam.

You're a fine mixture of all that you've seen!

It took much to shape you,

as it took for this being.

If you went to visit, as I urge you to do,

a wondrous happening could happen to you!

I know this for sure -

I've been there, you see,

and this wondrous happening happened to me!

The happening happened on a regular day.

With everything going the regular way.

The weather was weathering, not cold and not hot.

Things were being done, but not a whole lot.

Time was just ticking the way that it does.

The bees were just buzzing their regular buzz.

I remember deciding to go for a walk.

Not to get somewhere, just to ride out the clock.

Where I was going I hadn't a clue,

I just followed each foot, which followed each shoe,

which followed the path that goes down by the river.

I followed it as it as it shrank down to a sliver.

As I walked,

I felt the air starting to change.

Something was different…

I sensed something strange.

The sense I was sensing started to grow.

How to describe it?

To this day I don’t know…

I felt around me a remarkable feeling,

of stillness and calm,

of peaceful healing.

This all was quite pleasant, and I’d now walked quite a bit.

I’d walked a good walking, now I wanted to sit.

So I sat on a bench conveniently placed

on the edge of a field, facing the space.

The sun was now setting,

bowing gently goodnight.

Making room for an equally gentle twilight.

The crickets greeted the frogs.

The breeze was magic and restless.

The state of the evening really left me quite breathless!

And that’s when I saw them, drawing slowly nearer.

Walking through the field, their figure getting clearer.

“Why hello there!”  they said, their face holding a smile,

“You’ve got quite the view, could I sit for a while?”

“Why of course!” I replied. “Timba’s the name.”

“Nice to meet you”, they answered. “My name’s Leraime.”

I said to Leraime,

“I was just watching you sow.

Things seem so peaceful out there,

and so slow.”

“Yes,” they replied.

“I’ve learned to move slow.

I’ve learned moving fast is just one way to go.”

They were quiet a bit.

Then they said,

“It would be great if we all

would move slower instead.

We run from Point A

just to get to Point B,

which is funny because

we’d rather be at Point D!

We build things to help us

build with more speed,

Without asking if fast

is the speed that we need!

When we’ve had a hard day,

and things have been tough,

we imagine the reason

is we weren’t doing enough.

We think about everything we’re yet to do,

the million things we didn’t get around to.

‘I need to go faster,’

we’ll say with resolve,

assuming that that’s how our problems are solved.

So tomorrow,

we get out of bed and we RUN,

and still not everything seems to get done.

When we’ve done what we can,

when the day is all spent,

tomorrow seems to have gone

just how yesterday went.

Lots of running and doing and moving and shaking,

trying to see all the progress we’re making.

If you decide

you can’t keep running this way,

a Big Man will swoop in to come save the day.

He’ll say,

‘Look at all of this running you do!

You look quite exhausted!

you tired thing, you.’

The Big Man will conveniently fail to say 

that HE’S  the reason you're running this way!

His family told everyone a long time ago,

that running’s the only good way to go.

And now he gets paid

just to watch people run.

He just sits and makes sure

that good running is done

He has but one task:

make sure runners don’t quit.

He makes runners run

So that sitters can sit!

So when this Big Man sees you starting to rest…

he swoops in to do

the thing he does best!

He’ll come up to your door,

and before you can blink,

he’ll be in your kitchen

helping himself to a drink!

He’ll sit on your sofa,

assume you don’t mind.

(Typical sitter behaviour, you’ll find!)

He’ll say,

‘I have the solution for you.

It’ll change your whole life!

I promise, it’s true!’

He promises something.

Something for your running.

He assures you your rest time

is almost coming!

The next thing he’ll do

is sell you a gadget.

He'll tell you it's magic!

That you have to have it. 


He'll say,

‘This humble doodad is meant

 to reduce runners’ running by 300 per cent!’

‘If you want to buy this,

come down to my shop. 

Running'll be so easy.

you won't want to stop!’

One of the greatest things he has pitched

has helped him and his friends get incredibly rich. 

The thing that he sold

was the tiniest chip.

Smaller than the teeniest tiniest pip.

Smaller than the germs that crawl on your hand,

almost as small as a DNA strand!

He sold it to us.

He promised great things.

If we wanted to stop running,

well, these were our wings!

In radios, in phones,

in fridges, and cars -

We'd stop running soon,

The day couldn't be far!

This chip now powers most things that we use:

it’s in fridges and phones,

even basketball shoes.

The big man grows rich

selling us these,

telling us we can keep running with ease.

But somehow running still doesn't seem easy.

Nothing about what we do seems more breezy. 

The reason, I'll tell you -

and this is true -

the chips are not for the me or the yous.

Or the people digging minerals out in the mines, 

or assembling our phones out in factory lines. 

All of us keep running,

but now at a sprint,

with this microchip tech as encouragement. 


The Big Man keeps on sitting

with a smile on his face,

as we keep on running

at incredible pace. 

But here's something he doesn't want you to see:

running is not the only way to be!

There's walking and swimming

and skipping and flying

and dancing and standing

and sitting and lying. 

The Big Men want you to run

because it grows their wealth. 


They make you comply

using wiles and stealth.

But when all the running

becomes much too much,

it's useful to say,

‘No, I think that's enough. 

All of these gizmos

do indeed help me run,

but I think I've decided

that running's no fun.

It's not that I don't think they're nifty.

I do.

I just don't need a chip inside of my shoe.

And having a credit card chip in my hand?

To be honest, I don't really get the demand.

It's just another form of money, you know.

I don't think it's progress if it maintains status quo.

When I look at the future,

I think of my past.

I assume that the next day

Will look like the last.

But I’m tired.

I don’t want to run anymore.

That can’t be all

My existence is for.’

He'll shiver! He'll shake!

He'll beg and he’ll plead.

He'll say, ‘Okay then...

Well, what do you need?’

You can think for a moment.

And then you can say,

‘I'd like to do things

some other way.

We seem to think

if this tech does this thing

then that's all it does.

That that's all it can bring.

And I like these chips. 

I could like them a lot.

So why don't we see

what else you've got? 

Something that lets me

be slower, more chill.

Something a little more...

walk-y, if you will.’

You could say that, you know.

And you'd be sure to find

that many people have thoughts of this kind.

If we all came together,

if we stopped running today,

our tomorrow could go

a whole different way.

Because tomorrow's not here yet!

It isn’t today!

There's more than one path.

There's more than one way.”

Leraime then got quiet.

We sat there together.

We sat in the silence.

Admired the weather.

Then I said, “Thanks!

That was a great chat.

I had a great sit.

Now it's time to head back.”

So I did.

And as I slowly walked,

I pensively pondered

all these new thoughts.

I realized I did seem to run quite a lot.

And that was the first day I’d decided to not. 


Instead, I had strolled. 

I just followed each shoe,

for no rhyme or reason - 

just something different to do.

And I'd had such a good day!

The best I'd had in a while.

And I used not one gizmo,

I realized with a smile.

That day changed my life.

That meeting with Leraime.

I don't really think about life quite the same. 

I try to live slower. 

I take more deep breaths.

I walk a lot more.

I run a lot less.

When I buy a thingamajig

or a whatzit,

I think about the Big Man -

why he wants me to want it. 

Well, that's my story.

That's what the being said to me.

If you went, would you find them?

There's no guarantee.

But a walk would be good. 

It would help clear your mind.

And who's to say

what happenings you might find.


Bibliography

Boulding, Elise. Building a Global Civic Culture: Education for an Interdependent World. New York: Teachers College Press, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1988.

D’Ignazio, Catherine, and Lauren F. Klein. “The Power Chapter.” Data Feminism. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2020. https://data-feminism.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/5evfe9yd/release/5?readingCollection=0cd867ef.

Halberstam, Judith. “Losing Hope, Finding Nemo and Dreaming of Alternatives.” Queer and Subjugated Knowledges: Generating Subversive Imaginaries, vol. 1, no. 1, 9–22. 2012. https://doi.org/10.2174/978160805339111204010009.

Herrington, Gaya. “Update to Limits to Growth: Comparing the World3 Model with Empirical Data.” Journal of Industrial Ecology, 2021, 614–626. https://advisory.kpmg.us/articles/2021/limits-to-growth.html.

Hurley, Kelly. “Is That a Future We Want? An Ecofeminist Exploration of Images of the Future in Contemporary Film.” Futures 40, no. 4 (2008): 346–359. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2007.08.007.

IPAK Centar. Jack Halberstam on Queer Failure, Silly Archives and the Wild. YouTube video, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKDEil7m1j8.

Johnson, Steven. “Serendipity.” In Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation, 35–54. New York: Riverhead Books, 2010.

Seuss, Dr. Horton Hears a Who!. New York: Random House, 1954.

Seuss, Dr. Oh, the Places You'll Go! New York: Random House, 1990.

Seuss, Dr. The Lorax. New York: Random House, 1971.

Seuss, Dr. Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose. New York: Random House, 1948.

Author Biography: Kurhula Mbetse is an undergraduate student at the University of Guelph, majoring in Culture and Technology Studies. Their developing academic interests lie in examining power systems and the role of imagination in building alternative futures.