Futurist Charlotte Kemp presents three veils for viewing the future: adapting to rapid change, questioning your identity and values, and resisting systems that are legal but morally wrong. She argues we must actively co-create the futures we want rather than accept what comes.
As a futurist keynote speaker, I often wrestle with the tone and depth of content that I can convey in a short window. With diverse audiences, it's inevitable that some people are just learning what a futurist is, while others already see tomorrow's breakthroughs as yesterday's news. So how does one embrace the needs of people who are only now learning what is possible in this extraordinary time we live in, while also engaging with those thinkers who are already actively creating their preferred futures? I live in Cape Town, South Africa. It's a part of the world where the weather has its own personality. This past week, as wind whipped through the trees and stirred up waves and fluttered curtains, I imagined veils being not so gently blown aside to reveal deeper mysteries. And I felt that this analogy made sense to me in terms of how we explore the future. The first veil is when we become aware that in order to remain relevant in a world that is rapidly changing, we need to adapt to it. We need to learn the new skills and embrace new thinking discard what doesn't work while adopting new approaches that will allow us to remain employable or allow our businesses to remain relevant. The second veil, however, invites us to reimagine who we are and what we do. We question those dominant narratives. We explore the values and worldviews that have been accepted without conscious thought. We intentionally design a future that serves us better. Drawing aside the second veil means that we are looking to change and grow, expand, become conscious, become more of who we want to be rather than what society has told us we should be. The third veil is deeper. It has manifestos and it implies revolution. It stands in resistance to what is legal yet morally wrong. The world behind the third veil has space for everyone. Not just the privileged few. Now I see everything through these 3 veils. I see people writing new stories for themselves. I see people longing for a hinted-at beautiful world, and I see those resisting a tide of exclusionary, harmful political narratives. These veils are our chance to become increasingly aware of our own responsibility for creating the future. They are an invitation to co-create our preferred future. I'm Charlotte Kemp, futurist, executive coach, and author.
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