A Map Metaphor for thinking about the future and where we are in time

As we learn about futures thinking, there are a huge range of really good, robust academic tools that we can use. But I'd like to introduce you to an entirely fictional, fantastical metaphor for how we could think about the future. This is a map that I designed, a map of time, and it serves as a metaphor for how we cope with, how we think about our past, our present, and what it is that we're looking for the future. This is not scientifically rigorous at all, but it really is good for starting conversations and for starting to reframe certain things that we experience as we struggle with why we can't move into the future that we want. First of all, we want to locate 1/3 of the way into the picture, the little gemstone, the blue gemstone kind of throbbing with some energy. That is our present moment in time. Everything to the left of that is the past, and there are 2 villages there. You'll see one at the top called Tervalinnan and the other Envelapi. And then on the right-hand side, there are all the places that we are moving towards, the places that we want to go to. But let's just spend a little time looking at our past. Tervalinnan is a safe town, a place that is surrounded by a wall. The inhabitants are protected from outside forces, but that very protection also restricts what they can do. The people in the town can't get very creative because there is a a strict hierarchy. There's only so much space that they can use and there's only so much room that they can move in. When they step outside of that, they feel threatened and overwhelmed because they're unfamiliar with the outside world. In fact, the word tovaliden is a Finnish word for, for what is familiar, and very often when we are in stress situations, we want to return to what is familiar and safe. The town of Envelope is more open to the elements. They can see the changing seasons, the cycle of life, Winter and spring and summer and fall. And because of that, they are open to changes. They understand that things come and go and they don't feel threatened by that. Right in the center of that town, there is a beautiful fireplace. And I always imagine people coming together at the end of the day, sharing their knowledge, the elders sharing with the younger people what they've learned over the past, what they've seen, and the younger people sharing with their elders the new things that they're discovering. But the people in Emva Laphi, which is a Xhosa Zulu word for roots, our origin, they are willing to go and explore. And that is what I hope that we will do, is to explore the future. Every now and then we need to retreat to what is familiar, but mostly we want to have this open mindset that is looking towards the future.