Future Feelings with Radha Mistry

[00:00:00] Radha: Hi, I’m Radha Mistry, and you’re listening to Future Feelings in collaboration with Dean Audio. The study, the science, and the art of understanding the unknown and preparing for the future has long been a preoccupation of humankind, and is of particular concern to designers, especially as the stakes of our global present feel so high.

[00:00:32] As a designer with a background that spans architecture, narrative environments, and strategic foresight, I’m here to help you unpack the purpose and practice of futuring through five interviews with practitioners who approach this work in myriad ways. Now, let’s jump right in.

[00:00:51] Julian: My name is Julian Blaker. I, uh, I’m currently in Venice beach, California.

[00:00:56] So I think like, like five miles and anywhere between 20 minutes and two hours from where you are.

[00:01:05] I’m in my, I’m in my backyard studio. I have a studio behind my house, which is like a little bit like a sanctuary for doing the work that I do, which generally ranges around trying to find the way to activate. for myself and then for, for very many other people, ways of thinking and seeing into possibility and possible worlds, um, which, which sounds like a really big thing, but I think it’s something that we’ve, that we all do at one level or another we’ve all done.

[00:01:36] Like when we were. Five and six and seven and eight. We, we really tapped into this thing that we called imagination. And at some point we, we lose our grip on that. We lose our handle on it for, for any number of possible reasons. And I’m trying to find the way to get back to that. Like, I feel like this is my mission now is to, is to learn how to imagine new possibilities, new ways of understanding and seeing into the world and then actually making those worlds.

[00:02:08] Radha: And I guess What have you learned so far? Because one of the pieces of context that I’ll maybe add to this is, um, a few months ago, was it a few months ago, you somehow magically gathered about 20 of us in this beautiful house, this Frank Lloyd Wright designed house, um, outside of Detroit, and you had us come together to really think about how we imagine harder.

[00:02:36] And. I’d love if you could expand a bit on one, what you mean by that and why you kind of pulled us all together and you know, where that has led you, um, to this point so far.

[00:02:55] Julian: Yeah, that was, that was an act of, uh, of real unbridled kind of passion and a moment of like, enthusiasm and a sense of like, such a clear sense of, I guess, my own kind of professional purpose.

[00:03:11] Maybe it’s also personal, but it felt like professional purpose in a way. Whereas like, I, I’ve, I sensed very strongly that there was a, uh, a desire amongst a, a, you know, beautiful network of mostly confused, creative folks confused in the, in the best of senses that were trying to find their way into, uh, bringing their own ideas and abilities and the situations that they found themselves in professionally, you know, whatever context they were in by context, I mean, like, they’re doing something at, um, they have a job or they’re, they’re a professor someplace, or they, they do have a job, but they also do these other things like around creative practice.

[00:03:56] And it seemed like a, There was this network of people who I was very much familiar with, who it felt like it just needed, you know, if we could get together, I feel like it really felt genuinely, it was like so clear if we get together and we really put our time and energy and effort into this thing, um, we can ignite a creative renaissance.

[00:04:18] I mean, it just felt so clear to me, like, this is, this is, this is all I need to do is provide a situation and a context and a moment for, uh, for kind of, you know, connecting people because there’s some people who like I guess didn’t know each other and then some people who knew of each other, um, but hadn’t really had a context to kind of meet and interact.

[00:04:38] And, uh, that, that was the primary motivation. And I called it the Imagine Harder Summit. Um, because that was the kind of thing that felt like for this group of people, everyone who I invited came, there were some people who like, Almost couldn’t come, you know, for like reasons they weren’t like, eh, I don’t get what you’re doing.

[00:04:57] They were like, Oh, my kid just got sick.

[00:05:01] Yeah. Yeah. And

[00:05:02] Julian: I, and I, and I didn’t even, I try to use it like an experiments. Like I didn’t even, I didn’t even like apologize to them and be like, Oh man, I’m sorry. I’d be like, well, that’s why we have, partners, let them take care of the kid. You know, like I was really being like relentless.

[00:05:16] I really wanted people to come. And of course, you know, behind the scenes, like, you know, most of me, it’s just kind of like, Oh man, I’m sorry about that. We know you

[00:05:25] Radha: have a good heart, Julian. Yeah. So I was like, I

[00:05:28] Julian: was like, let me, let me rely on the fact that people assume that I have a good heart, which I think I do.

[00:05:32] Um, and so I, I just felt like it was such a clear vision, like if I could do this and get these people together in this room. And a lot of that came from, um, in the months before I had given, um, a couple of, a couple of, you know, kind of keynote talks as, as, as you will at certain times. And I was kind of trying this translation of this kind of feeling I had into a, you know, like a 20 minute bit, you know, where you just kind of present to people.

[00:05:58] And I was like, I was just. Let me just try this idea. This, this thought I have is like with, with the, the main beats of it being in the, in the kind of coda being like, it’s time to imagine harder. Like, you know, there’s a talk about, but, but, but, and this is why I’m telling you this because it’s time to imagine harder.

[00:06:13] And I remember doing it and kind of, you know, like engaging the audience just by eyesight, just kind of like looking around at people and like from, you know, older, you know, senior professional people to, you know, people who are just, you know, getting their BFA. I just saw this kind of like this look of just like, yeah, yeah.

[00:06:41] Like I feel this. I hear what you’re saying. And the kind of, you know, generous response that you might get afterwards. Um, There was one event. It was very, it was a very high production value event. I was like, man, this is, I better get this right. It was, I was, I was genuinely nervous. Um, not that I don’t get nervous, but it’s just kind of like, they also didn’t have a little teleprompter.

[00:07:03] So you knew what slide was coming next. So it’s like, I had to memorize the whole, you know, like 20 minute. Dang. Yeah. I know some words I wanted to use and I was like, I would literally sing them over and over and over again. Don’t forget that word. Don’t forget that word. Um, and then afterwards I just, I just got this from people who, who I was, um, I revered who didn’t know me from anyone to like, who’s this guy who I revered coming up to me like backstage and just being like, Oh my God, that was incredible.

[00:07:31] That was really powerful. Wait, so who are you? Where are you from? And this kind of stuff. It was just like that kind of, that kind of generous kind of recognition that made me feel like, okay, I think I’m onto something. And I think I would be. Uh, it would be, it would not be in, I would not be putting myself in service of this community that I love if I just kind of sat on it or sat on my laurels and been like, yeah, I just gave a great talk.

[00:07:56] I’m going to go fuck off. It was like, I gave this great talk because it was, it resonated with people. It spoke to them and I wanted to bring that and I also want, and I wanted to do it in such a way where it’s like, okay. Um, a little bit, a little bit awkward being like a thought leader, but if I can bring a network of people together who I also revere and I also look up to and, and try to, and try to, you know, sort of, um, help them, uh, help, help them help us all, uh, message this because I knew people felt it.

[00:08:29] Yeah. I get what you’re saying. You know, they, they might be like, Oh, I kind of say it like this. Maybe we had, we had a whole conversation about how do we actually message this? What is the. you know, what is, what is, what is the meme? And I also wanted to like, really lean into the power of the kinds of things that we’re, that we’re, we can be, cause we, we think a lot that we can very easily dismiss as extractive, you know, it’s like, ah, I don’t know about this social media thing.

[00:08:53] It seems to be making people, you know, blind. buy stuff that they don’t need. It’s like, I get it, but also it works. So how can we kind of band together in a way and just say like, you know what, let’s, let’s, let’s do some really, uh, collective world building. Cause it almost feels like if, if we can get, you know, if we get near future laboratory and, and, and, and super flocks and, and Radha and, and Elliot and Tony and Fiona, blah, blah, blah, everyone who, everyone else is kind of like, man, I love these people.

[00:09:20] I wish I could do what they do. How do they do it? And we just said, we’re together on this. There’s a, there’s something that’s bigger than any one of us individually. This is not a zero sum game. This is a game where we need to, we need to bring creativity and the imagination back into the conversation about how we remake and build the kinds of worlds that we want to inhabit.

[00:09:42] That seems so clear to me. It’s like, we just find the way to. You know, go in lockstep, you know, you see, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s even talking about, thinking about it gives me chills. Just like, yeah, it’s see that.

[00:09:55] Radha: No, that’s, that’s palpable. And I think one of the things I do want to take a moment to kind of talk a little bit about is when you talk about, well, there’s, A bazillion questions that have come up now, but when you talk about world building for folks who might not be as familiar with it, how do you conceptualize like what even world building is and why is that something that as folks who operate in the futures space, why is that?

[00:10:28] You know, a, I don’t want to call it a tool cause you know, I hate tools, but, um, why is that a, an approach to thinking? that we rely on so often.

[00:10:43] Julian: Yeah, it’s, it’s a, it’s a really good point. I, I’m, I’m a little bit allergic to, to the, to the word world building. Um, and it’s, it’s not really worth getting into except to say that what it makes me feel is, is, uh, it’s almost like grounded imagining.

[00:10:59] It’s like grounded. It’s like, okay, so we’re going to, we all imagine, you know, whether we believe it or not, we all see possibility, you know, at almost like every waking moment into, you know, how we make a decision. It’s like, when you think about having a cup of coffee, if you, if you, if you think visually, you see the, you know, I, I saw, I saw my, my diner mug.

[00:11:20] Right. And I was like, okay, that’s what I thought about coffee. That’s what I thought about. And in a way you’re sort of constructing, you know, a path forward into, if we want, you know, into a, into a very, very near future, you know, in a few moments, this is what’s going to happen at the same time. I’m imagining what it’s going to, you know, what it’s going to be like as I’m waiting for the coffee, what it’s going to be like, okay, I’m going to see right out.

[00:11:41] So I, I picture you in my head and in my mind, world building is a kind of grounded, you know, there’s, there’s certain. people would assign rules to how you do world building. And, uh, you know, maybe I’m into that. Maybe I’m not. I think it’s, it can be helpful in some contexts, especially for people who, for whom, you know, grounded imagining, uh, as, as a phrase might be like, why, I don’t know, can you tell me how to do that?

[00:12:05] And you might be like, Hey, you know, it’d be helpful. It’s like, let’s do some steps. Let’s, let’s start, you know, in a particular procedure. And some people, The, the world building oftentimes goes top down. So it’s like, it’ll be planetary scale and you kind of get down to like, what is the nature of the planet?

[00:12:19] What is the nature of the geography? How is it formed? And you kind of gradually get to cultures and communities and then you might get down to like, individuals, but maybe not. And that’s, so that’s one way of grounding a big idea. Wow. I wish we, I wish we lived in a world where we could have addressed the climate crisis.

[00:12:39] It’s a good one. Okay. That’s the, let’s imagine into that world. What does that, what does that look like? And you might start from the top down and say like, well, we need to work on, you know, let’s start at the, at the upper atmosphere. And then work our way down. How do we get this cleaner? Okay. Then you start getting closer down to like, you know, real, real grounded, really thorny intractable problems.

[00:12:58] Like, okay, how are we going to address, you know, the, the, the hydrocarbon problem, and so you really get into the, you get into the imagining into that world, but you, now you’re grounding it because now you’re beginning to address. a real systemic components, you know, different kinds of structures and institutions and networks of power and flows of value and all that kind of stuff.

[00:13:19] And then you’re really into it and it can be very exhausting. And then the other way is like, is, you know, of building a world of imagining a world in a grounded way is to start from, is to start from, uh, you know, just the questions like, um, where does my coffee come from?

[00:13:36] in this world.

[00:13:36] Julian: You start from, you start from that, you start from the diner mug.

[00:13:39] Where did this mug come from and how was it made? What’s on it? You know, does it have a logo? If it has a logo, is it of some kind of commercial entity of some description? If so, what is that? Is it a, you know, and so you can, and you can start building the world through these, these disconnected components, like the, uh, The archaeologist, um, who, you know, comes back to our world and is only able to see the material cultural artifacts left behind by people, uh, or maybe, you know, because they’re, they use a quantum phase time traveling device.

[00:14:09] They can’t see people, they can only see objects. And so they grab an object and they use it as a clue, as a way to try to unpack, you know, they’re almost like Columbo. Trying to figure out like what, who were these people? I said, I found a diner mug that had a logo for something that seems like it might be an energy company.

[00:14:26] I wonder what kind of energy they consumed. And I found this, this baseball hat. Um, but it wasn’t named for a sports team. It was a name for, uh, you know, a cafe and, uh, you know, you, you start finding the components and that, you know, there’s another way of kind of imagining into a world that you kind of imagining as you kind of go forward, you’re asking yourself questions.

[00:14:47] What do I see if I ended up in someone’s kitchen or if I ended up in a corner store and how did those tell me about this particular world?

[00:14:56] Radha: Yeah. And to be completely honest, I sometimes feel like that the way in where we start almost, you know, with our feet on the ground at the individual scale tends to be more compelling and can oftentimes lead to points of inquiry that feel a lot richer, but there’s something liberating about being able to explore futures at that scale.

[00:15:23] And I’m remembering when you came to guest lecture in one of, in my history and theory course at SCI Arc with my architecture students, my, my MArch students. And you could, I could see, I don’t know if you sensed this or if you saw it, but they had like, every single student had an aha moment. When you came in, and it’s because so much of the ways in which they think about, you know, I always say like buildings are future artifacts, right?

[00:15:53] When you’re thinking about what an, uh, an architectural artifact is, you have to imagine what the world looks like and how that world evolves around this, this thing you’re placing in the ground that hopefully evolves as society evolves and hopefully addresses the needs and expectations of. the people, the plants, the other entities, the beings that will inhabit that space.

[00:16:17] Um, but that scale can be really overwhelming at times. And one of the things that I have found so refreshing about your practice and the way you go about, um, futuring is the, you know, kind of really approaching things from those, the mundane future, the mundane rituals, this, like this approach to

[00:16:48] making about the future in the way that feels very tangible. And I love for you to, if you could just talk a little bit more about that and share a little bit more about, um, you know, the concept of design fiction and, My favorite. So my favorite story in that, like when you came to visit us was when one of the students asked, what’s your metric for success with this work?

[00:17:16] And I don’t know if you remember what your response was.

[00:17:19] Julian: I don’t, I want to hear it. I want to remember.

[00:17:22] Radha: Yeah, it was, it was so wonderful. Cause I was like, ah, that’s like, I aspire it to be like that. But like you said, you know what, if I just put a smile on someone’s face,

[00:17:33] that’s enough,

[00:17:34] Radha: you know, in like true fashion.

[00:17:36] Right. But But that’s so beautiful because it releases us from the burden of like feeling like we have to solve a problem and end up somewhere productive when half the time, like just engaging in the inquiry and saying, I want to take on, I want to see where the process leads me is productive. It is generative.

[00:18:02] allowing ourselves to play, allowing some whimsy like that. There’s so much value in that. And that’s not something, um, That I think we give ourselves permission to do. And I, one of the things I’ve learned from your practice is giving myself permission as someone who is, you know, I I’m always reluctant to call myself a futurist, but as someone who is a designer in the future space, um, to just, to just make shit.

[00:18:32] Cause I’m curious about the future. Yeah.

[00:18:36] Julian: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that’s, that’s the. Uh, you know, you kind of come around to this, um,

[00:18:48] owning like a. Uh, you know, like a recognition in, in oneself, this is, you know, coming around to the point where it’s, I felt that in the, the, the, whatever my practices, I always felt like it’s like, well, it better be serious because you want to work with serious people and they expect you to be serious.

[00:19:08] You know what I mean? Like talking to, uh, you know, like a fortune 50 client. Um, you’re not talking to the CEO, but you’re talking to someone from there. It’s like, oh man, they’re going to pay for this better. They better, it better feel like something that they would get from McKinsey. And now I’m just kind of like, fuck that.

[00:19:23] What if they, if they want, you know, they’re looking, they’re talking to me and what can I bring that is of unique value? What, what is, you know, what is the other thing? And so I guess going back to my, to And it’s just gonna sound, sound crazy, but it’s just like going back to like my eight year old self in a way, what is it that made me excited?

[00:19:45] What, you know, and I felt like for, for my entire life, I’ve been chasing the feeling of being, you know, like eight year old, you know, whatever, eight, 10, 13, whatever it was when I was, when I was, um, at a point where it’s like, no one told you not to, Be playful and have fun and make people laugh. Uh, no one told you that it makes no sense for you, you know, and your brother and sister to put on a little puppet show standing behind the, you know, sitting behind the sofa and, you know, charging, charging your, your, your parents and their friends who have been over for a cocktail party or whatever, a nickel each.

[00:20:21] Like no one told you that’s the stupidest thing ever. Why would you want to do that? It’s expected of us, you know, when we’re young and you might look at it in America, so I don’t want to look at that because they’re putting on a little show and they’re totally improvising it. Maybe they rehearsed a little bit, but basically they’re just making stuff up.

[00:20:34] I can tell that. And you, and as a, as an adult, you look at it and you’re looking at it and you might be, they’re not, you know, maybe. We’re not doing anything profound as a, as a, you know, as a narrative arc or something, but we’re, we’re playing and they recognize and they appreciate the value of it because, you know, they gave you a nickel and they’re paying attention and they might even laugh and they might laugh at just, it might just be a feeling that they have like, wow, isn’t it amazing?

[00:21:00] What a, what a youthful, You know, collective imagination can do and put on and not, and not even second guess themselves, not even be like, I don’t think we should do this. Just be like, no, let’s put on a show. This will be great. We’ll do the same thing, getting the neighborhood kids together and you know, grabbing my dad’s old super eight movie camera, being like, we’re going to make a movie.

[00:21:19] And they’ve been like, great, you know, what’s it about? I don’t know. You stand there and you stand there and pretend that you’re, you know, you’re Kung Fu fighting or we’ll, we’ll figure it out and be at it and just doing it. And that, that was, that was meaningful. That was profound in a way, because you were essentially doing this world building.

[00:21:35] And at some point, um, well, you know, not for me, but, you know, at some point we were told to stop doing that. You know, it could be anything bad parenting or just like an admonishing, um, you know, kind of dysregulated, uh, teacher at school is got their own problems. They need to work through, or we’re just told it’s like, look, it’s time to get serious.

[00:21:55] You know, that putting on the puppet show was fine, but now look, you know, let me tell you, life’s hard. You’re going to need to find something to do, you know, get a job. Maybe you can, you know, look at your uncle. He’s, he’s, he’s done a great job as an accountant. Do you ever think about accounting? You know, that kind of thing.

[00:22:10] You’re kind of like, well, I guess it seems okay. If you’re telling me, then I guess that better be the way it is. Um, and then some of us, that doesn’t, doesn’t happen, you know, both to our, you know, Uh, and if you’re, you know, for, for a beautiful reasons and circumstances, but also for challenging things, because we just don’t find ourselves fitting into, you know, the quote unquote account.

[00:22:32] I don’t, I don’t want to diminish the accounting as a thing, but you know, where it’s like, okay, this is the path is where you go and basically, you know, you do this and then maybe if you’re lucky, maybe. By 65, you’ll be able to retire. But it doesn’t seem like it nowadays. You know, it just seems like you’re gonna be grinding.

[00:22:48] Um, and, and that could be hard. You know, there are a lot of people with a, with a very high, you know, high, uh, high creative consciousness struggle. Immensely to find their way and to fit into the world and to, to, to find, you know, way of collaborating and integrating with, you know, structure, which is the thing that says, look, bank account, driver’s license, tax ID, you got to file taxes, all this kind of stuff.

[00:23:11] That can be such a challenge for someone who’s, you know, high, highly creative, you know, just doesn’t can’t deal with structure. And you find a lot of them just, they don’t make it, you know, they just find themselves on the street. They find themselves in conflict. Yeah.

[00:23:26] Radha: Say I am like, The worst corporate citizen who has found myself in corporate foresight for the last 15 years, somehow.

[00:23:33] And

[00:23:34] Radha: I think like my role is usually the one to come in and say, how do I break this thing? That looks like fun.

[00:23:40] Julian: So that, so this, this is, this is, I think an important point to this. Cause cause people like you and then, you know, our friend Elliot and you know, scores of others who, who have, who, who navigate that, that, that, um, kind of rocky chasm between Creativity, imagination and structure where they’re just kind of like, all right, I’ll teach for a little bit.

[00:24:01] You know, I did that too. And maybe that’s the place because creative creativity and openness and you share what you want and then you find like, Oh man, actually, maybe not. There’s a lot of challenges here. So you, you kind of step back and forth in a way. So I’ll teach for a bit or, or, you know, or they, you manage to.

[00:24:17] set up an arrangement configuration, which like you have, which is, which is amazing. Like you were able to like regulate all those tensions. You feel the pull to be a creative, um, you know, imaginative spirit and you’ve got art in your wall. So you

[00:24:31] can

[00:24:33] Julian: go in, you can go into the office and deal with the managing partner.

[00:24:38] I’m holding all that together once that is, that is a high stress situation, but if you can regulate well enough, then you can, you know, you can manage that. And so how do we find the way to, to make, uh, you know, to make the situation that that’s just urine. Sorry to, sorry to point out. But yeah, I think you get the tension, you know, and people, people probably listening will feel it.

[00:24:58] I get what you’re talking about. How can we, how can we make that so that, that, that, that situation is a place that you can be, that isn’t. You know, wow, man, how did you do that? You and I probably both get, and everyone else gets asked, like, how do you do it? I was at a workshop at ASU, you know, with, with Ed Finn and the, and the gang.

[00:25:16] And I got, I got a lot of really earnest, you know, questions at the dinner, you know, after the glass of wine, people were like, man, how do you do what you do? How do you get paid to do what you do? I was like, it ain’t easy. Let me tell you what, don’t make any assumptions as like, I got it all figured out, but I know what’s right.

[00:25:30] And I know what feels good to myself. And I know what brings value to people. And if that value means I can make a person smile because of some work I did, then that’s beautiful. Then it’s like, I’ve done my, I’ve done my work. That’s cool.

[00:25:48] Radha: Of these two points kind of pulled forward, which is, you know, you and your brother, Making little home videos. I think you’d shared one on social like last week or something. Someone was throwing a pie in someone’s face. I don’t know how it ended, but it seemed really interesting. And then this kind of like crusader on right now to have us all, you know, just to like reawaken our, our sense of imagination and our sense of play.

[00:26:14] And the question I get asked a lot, and I’m sure you get asked a lot is like, what did your path look like? How did you get from the little boy, you know, who was super into like imaginary worlds and making stories to, you know, a very wise man who is still very curious and playful, um, sitting in Venice.

[00:26:39] It’s like, just trying to get us to, to wake up and be like, how do we keep playing? How do we stay curious and inquisitive? What, what, like connect us between those two points if you can.

[00:26:56] Julian: Yeah.

[00:26:57] Radha: And it can be meandering and it can be nonsensical cause that’s been my path too. But

[00:27:02] Julian: yeah. Well, if I, if I had to look back, um, and.

[00:27:09] There’s one way to say I was like, I kind of knew what I was doing, uh, which I definitely did. There’s, there’s a lot of internal doubt and conflict all throughout the whole path. Um, but also I think there were, there were probably like two main things. One was, um,

[00:27:33] a component of myself that, that it’s just a strong intuition, but it wasn’t the kind of intuition where, where I knew what was going on. It was an intuition where it was like, it was almost like it will work out.

[00:27:49] And

[00:27:51] Julian: it wasn’t, it wasn’t like totally clear. It wasn’t, it wasn’t like, uh, you know, like full of like, I know what I’m doing that all, as a matter of fact, it was the opposite.

[00:27:58] I have no idea what I’m doing, but I, but I, I couldn’t, I wasn’t able to question myself to the point of making any sense. of, of like over, over determining where I was going. Cause I didn’t know most of the time, but I had, I had just like, just like a strong sense. And then there were just like these, these, these moments where I, I don’t know if it was the nature of my character or personality or just something that I kind of effervesce that I just had these beautiful, you know, mentor might be overstating it, but just, but just people who just kind of like nudged me just ever so delicately in a direction.

[00:28:40] Um, One was, uh, well, you know, this was, this was a big nudge was my, my dad who would take my brother and I, uh, to the jazz group in New Jersey, take us to jazz clubs in New York, like totally not legal kind of thing. So I would take my, I’m going to take my, my 12 and 13 year old sons to the village Vanguard, you know, it’s just like.

[00:29:07] At, you know, like 11 o’clock at night on the school night, you know what I

[00:29:10] Radha: mean’s? Great parenting .

[00:29:13] Julian: And I remember so clearly 1, 1, 1 time, uh, I think it was McCoy Tyner was playing, and he said, um, you know, in a separate break, my dad was like, go, go, go talk to them. My brother and I were super into, into, into, I mean, still then, but, um, I kind of gave up performing my, my brother kept doing it and he’s like, go talk to them.

[00:29:34] It’s like, no, you talking about it, it’s crazy. Like this is, this is, uh. It’s not, there’s no, um, and he said, and I was like, well, if we did, what would we say? He said, just, just tell him that you enjoyed it. He enjoyed the set. I was like, nah, no, go ahead and do it. You’ll see. It’s going to be amazing. Okay. Go up there.

[00:29:52] I don’t know. I might’ve brought a napkin. You know, could you, could you give me an autograph? Something like I remember going up to McCoy Tyner. Koi Tainer, like legend and being like, um, hey Hey man, I enjoyed the set. And I just, I just remember it was like, not for a moment. He wasn’t sure where to look.

[00:30:12] And he looked down and he’s like, Oh, Hey little man, I appreciate that. Thank you. Tell me your name. You know, and then just, I just had, you know, nice conversation with them. Um, and said, you know, like I love playing jazz and playing, you know, playing in a little band and high school, that whole thing. And it was just such a, such a warmth, you know, as he’s like, Dabbing the sweat off, but you could say, look, he looked at me and he, he recognized, I mean, whatever it was, like he saw, saw, um, like an earnestness maybe.

[00:30:45] And it’s in a desire. And, you know, he had enough, I don’t know the man at all, but it seemed like he had enough of a spirit. I’m just like, um, I can’t, I’m not going to dismiss this guy because I want to go to the bar and get another. Harvey Walbanger or whatever he’s drinking. He’s like, wow. Shoot his sleeve and look at his watch.

[00:31:06] He’s like, you’re out late.

[00:31:07] Yeah.

[00:31:11] Julian: So there’s something, there’s something about that. So I, so I think that that kind of, That it was like an early seared in my mind of thing of like, um, the, there’s just the power of, of connecting to, to someone. And I can, I kept that with me because I would do, you know, further on in life when I was, you know, in college and then, um, and then grad school, grad school, you’ll, you, you find someone to aspire to.

[00:31:34] Indirectly, it’s like, wow, I really like their scholarship. I like the way they write, like the way they think, I like the way they, you know, everything about them. It’s like, and then you, they’re modeling for you in a way, a kind of behavior. It’s like, okay, let me, and then I would do the same thing. So every time I went to a, you know, academic talk or to, uh, to a lecture at some, you know, at the Dia center or wherever it was, I was like, it was a rule.

[00:31:55] You have to, um, you have to get over yourself and go up to the mic and ask a question. So form a question. And, uh, And, and do whatever you need to do to get to that person. you know, just, just go up to say, I’m just like, Hey, I’m Julian Blaker. I’m studying here and really enjoyed your talk. I really enjoyed that last book you did, whatever it was, and just do that.

[00:32:16] There’s kind of connecting things. And I think it was like, that gave me a sense of, um, you know, like a groundedness and whatever practice I was in, you start feeling like maybe you’re part of a network that’s bigger than you. And that is encouraging. Um, And then you also find, I also found that it was easier to, uh, get that kind of mentoring and guidance from the people who were supposed to be mentoring, guiding me.

[00:32:39] So like, you know, faculty and that kind of stuff. And if people just sort of say like, I think they saw something and they’re like, go talk to her. She’s gonna, she’s the one that you need to really connect with. And I remember I did that at a lecture that I was just auditing this cyberpunk science fiction class when I was at the university of Washington.

[00:32:56] And, um, she said, Julian, you should come to this lecture. Donna was giving a lecture. You should go to this lecture. And I went to the lecture and I did my thing. It’s like, I mean, it was packed lecture hall. And I was like, I’m going to sit here. I’m going to wait until I can go up to her and just say like, Hey, you know, professor, how I really enjoy your work.

[00:33:13] And I did that. And she did the Macquarie Tyner thing. She’s like, tell me about what you’re studying. , who are you and what you, what are you doing? And um, you know, in a, in a, in a maybe seven minute conversation, she’s like, I’d like to hear more, like, you know, send me, send me an email. Here’s my email address.

[00:33:29] And I did that. And then she said, you should apply. And then I applied, and then I got into this remarkable program where there was, you know, then, then the network of, of these people who can help guide you, expand. So I think, you know, if, if I were to summarize, it’s like openness. You know, find, find that way to, I think I was, I was able to find that way to not question my own sincerity to the point where I wouldn’t go up and talk to people, engage people.

[00:33:55] It was, it was, it’s different from networking. It wasn’t like extractive network. It was more like a genuine sense of, um, you know, starting leading with like, I admire who you are and what you’re doing. And I think that’s really hard for creatives to do because it creates, Well, I think, I think, well, you know, this might be a little bit of cynicism, but it’s like, I feel like when you’re creative, you look at the world as zero sum game.

[00:34:20] Is that the right term? Zero sum game. There’s only so much value to be, uh, to be given to creative people. There’s a small piece of cheese that we’re all chasing after, you know, whether it’s a grant recognition, it’s like, Oh, I want to get into, uh, Um, fast companies, 30 under 30, I better, you know, there’s only 30, there are only 30 spots for that.

[00:34:41] So I better be better than this other person. And I cannot celebrate this other person who’s alongside of me, even though I admire the hell out of their work, I cannot reach out to them. And I think it’s even hard for it’s, it’s probably maybe even harder for creatives to accept that kind of adulation, particularly from a peer, they’ll accept it from fast company that wants to celebrate them.

[00:34:59] They’ll accept it from. Uh, you know, whatever award they might be given or recognition

[00:35:05] Radha: or whatever it is. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:35:07] Julian: Yeah. Yeah. Um, but I think it’s, it’s hard to do otherwise. It’s hard to be, it’s hard to be, it’s hard to be generous. I think as a, as a, as a generalization, it’s hard for us to be generous with amongst each other, um, is kind of where my head’s at.

[00:35:25] I, I’m not saying that that’s a, That’s a truism. It’s, it’s sometimes just, it’s the way I feel. Um, and I think what I learned from those moments with, you know, McCoy diner, Donna Haraway, and, you know, countless other times it’s happened, even with Tony and Fiona, who I’m just like, Oh my God. When the first time I met them, I was at the, I think it was at the, it might’ve been here.

[00:35:49] I think I had, what I did do I think I invited Tony to come do it, do a You know, a little brown bag thing when I was at Nokia. I think that was my way to kind of connect with them in some way, I think. And it’s silly because they’re such generous people.

[00:36:05] Radha: So generous. They’re so open and just willing to kind of share what they’re working on.

[00:36:13] And I think one of the things that I’ve just admired with people like, you know, Tony and Fiona, and even yourself is that, um, because you are all quite perpetually curious. There isn’t this sense of like, I’ve arrived. Let me be your, you know, your guide and like the wise one. It’s like, Oh no, I want to learn from you.

[00:36:36] Like, what are, what are you doing Rada? You know? And I always think like me, what am I doing? Um, you touched a little bit on Nokia. And I think one of the things that, one of the questions again, that I get so much is like, what does this look like in real life? It’s great to be able to talk about the future and it’s great to be able to do these experiments and to build stories and make worlds.

[00:37:02] But, you know, what does it look like out in the real world? And I don’t know if your experience at Nokia was part of that trajectory or, you know, Like a, a little wandering kind of sidestep. I don’t know. I, you know, but I’d love to hear more about that and just your experience out there.

[00:37:32] Julian: Yeah. Every, everything was, was definitely a wandering thing.

[00:37:36] I, I, I envied, uh, so this kind of connects the story. So I envy people who have, to a certain level, who, who have a, um, Uh, a career plan, you know, they have a spreadsheet. What

[00:37:49] does that look like? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:37:52] Julian: Exactly. What does it look like? Um, and I guess, I guess I envy them cause, cause I’m unable to do it.

[00:37:59] You know, just that kind of, it’s like, I guess, jealousy in a way. It’s like, how can you see your life that way? And I, I’m not saying that in a, in a way where it’s like, I don’t want an answer. Basically what I’m saying, it’s like, your, your idea of life is stupid. I’m saying like, I’m literally asking the question earnestly, like, how do you see your life that way?

[00:38:15] Um, And so I. A dear friend, no longer with us, sadly, was one of those people who had that, had a plan, you know, it was almost like you say, like, man, he’s going to be in charge of something someday. Look at that. Look at, and, you know, and full of charisma, everyone around him who worked with them or alongside of them, uh, you know, loved him.

[00:38:40] It was just like, Oh my God, he’s amazing. Oh, you know, well, wow. I know him too. And, you know, he’s just one of those people. One of those people, Canadian. Um, and, and, uh, when I was teaching, when I moved to Los Angeles in 2005 to teach in the film school at USC. And so that’s what I was doing. And part of that, it was, I was teaching MFA students, uh, who were studying interactive media and the, the overall broad kind of remit of that particular division of the film school.

[00:39:13] The film school was, uh, to, if there’s going to be a future of visual storytelling, it’s going to involve some kind of interactive component. Okay. Got it. Cool. That makes sense. Uh, and so a lot of it was kind of like games. And at the time when I, you know, video games and, and I was mostly interested in interactive media, sort of interaction broadly conceived.

[00:39:36] And so I was doing a lot of like the early days pre iPhone. Uh, what are the ways in which we can use mobile technology. As a form of interactive, you know, play, so it was, it was location based media was a big thing because you could maybe find a phone that had GPS in it, you know, like a Nokia phone that GPS and you could maybe, or maybe you could connect a GPS.

[00:39:59] device to a phone. Like, how does that work? And so we’re just kind of playing around experimenting. What is it? Uh, what, what could interactive media be in, in, uh, uh, if you, if you were to situate that in an expansive way within the world, I guess what Apple’s not calling spatial computing, but what does that look like?

[00:40:17] And so a lot of experiments and, um, I was really into mobile technology. Uh, and so I had these kind of indirect connections to Nokia and, And this guy is his name. His name was Mike Krasinski was. was at Nokia. He was a designer product designer, and he was just another one of those people who’s just really into seeing what’s going on in the world and making connections with people.

[00:40:44] And he had such a, he’s such a beautiful way to him that he would just, He would come by, you know, come by USC. I think at the time we were doing this, maybe once a month, we were doing a mobile Monday, you know, just, let’s just get people together, get a, you know, get a few hundred dollars from, from the university’s billion dollar endowment.

[00:41:02] And let’s, let’s get some, uh, let’s get some canapes and, and, uh, and You know, like a tub of suds and just have people around just talk about what they’re doing and try to network commercially, you know, with other organizations and activities and all that kind of stuff. And so he would come to those things and we got to know each other at one point.

[00:41:19] He’s like, Hey, could you come over and give a talk at Nokia? Just tell us about the work that you’re doing. Um, and I remember giving like a kind of crappy, crappy talk cause I didn’t know exactly what I was doing. And I was also thinking like, wow, I wonder what’s going on in Nokia. know, why are they interested in this, in this modality of, of, you know, mobile technology beyond just the instrumental kind of, you know, on the, on the far side of the, you know, of the structure matrix, like they’re just a machine they’re making, I forget what the number was.

[00:41:50] There’s some number of crazies like, uh, You know, like a new phone every 12 seconds, or maybe it was like every 12 seconds, every, every second, they’re making 12 phones. It was something along those lines, just incredible cadence of just producing material artifacts that go out and live in the world. And they had so much, uh, you know, more money than sense.

[00:42:10] I don’t know if that’s true, but they had a lot of money. So they were, they were just trying to, you know, how, what can we do to, um, you know, pay for that? prove our worth and value in, in these other kind of adjacent worlds. And maybe, maybe interesting ideas will come out of these kinds of collaborations with universities, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:42:26] We’re going to do research and that kind of thing. And through that, um, I, I just, the wandering thing is like, I had a, I had a meeting with the, with the, with the head of my department at the time. And, Yeah. Nice enough guy. I like his kids. Um, but we weren’t getting along, you know, it was just like, because I was like, you just sort of described, I’m a really, really crap employee.

[00:42:54] I’m like, do not tell me what to do. This is not going to work out well. And even if you tell me what to do, it’s going to work out worse for you because I’m still not going to do it. And I, and it’s not because I want to be a pain in the butt. It’s because it’s like, I think that there are other ways to see into the world and the kinds of worlds that you’re seeing are not.

[00:43:13] I just, I just don’t dream those worlds. And I think that, you know, with a little bit of conceit, it’s like, I think my dream is more powerful than yours. And so I need to go after it. I can’t sort of sit here and kind of like pretend that I’m going to, that you’ve got it all figured out. Cause, you know, From where I’m sitting, I don’t think you do.

[00:43:33] I think that there’s, there’s a more expansive, you know, near future that, and you’re just looking at this little minuscule component of it. And I think my approach and my practice is just, I can’t help, but do this. And if that means that you’re only going to extend my contract another year, so be it.

[00:43:49] That’s cool. I’m going to, I’m going to find a way to not, not, not in a selfish way, but I’m going to, I’m going to find a way to, um, to, to advantage the dream that I see on, on those terms. And, and I, you know, I think it’s going to work out. And so I remember, I remember coming home being like, well, USC is not going to work out.

[00:44:13] And I remember, I remember, I remember my wife being just like, well, I guess you better figure something else out. And then she just kind of walked off. I’m like, okay, cool. No hugs, no pat on the back. No, you’re right. You’re right. That’s what I need to do. And, and I called up Mike. I said, Mike, here’s the situation.

[00:44:32] And he’s like, you know what, why don’t you, why don’t you, uh, let’s do, let’s do a little, you know, let’s do a little bit of work together. Let’s do a contract kind of deal, um, for a summer, right. Cause I felt, you know, I found out at the end of the school year, let’s hang out here for the summer and let’s see what happens.

[00:44:48] And so I went there, it was, it was, they were over in Calabasas at the time. I went over there and spent a summer and I liked what I saw. I liked the people. They were like really incredibly talented. Designers and creatives and master model makers, and they had all these facilities and they seem to have the other thing that that is important for people with big dreams, which is like money.

[00:45:13] So let’s put something together. Let’s make something work. I think I can, you know, be a part of helping this, this huge organization see into possible futures that it isn’t able to see into otherwise. And, uh, and did that for like, um, That’s seven or eight years. But that was completely wandering. That was like literally being forced, you know, I love, I love, I love when I get laid off jobs and that kind of stuff.

[00:45:37] Cause it’s like, to me, it’s exciting. It’s like, wow, what something next is going to happen. And I guess a level of confidence to be like on the, on the money side, it’s like, well, you know, I always seem to be able to turn a buck. I mean, worst case I put on a little, I put on a little puppet show. Which is fine.

[00:45:54] And, and, uh, and, and best cases, you’re, you’re going to really, you’re going to be living in your dream, the thing that you see, but you have to be prepared for someone to be like, um, to have that, have that moment of doubt and kind of conflict. And if you do that enough, you start to realize like, no, you know what, I’m on a path.

[00:46:16] I didn’t, I didn’t always realize, you know, now, you know, it feels like I’ve been around enough. It’s like, I’m on a path. This is good. Nothing’s going to stop me. It’s just going to, it’s going to, it’s going to keep going and growing. And that, that’s a, that’s a kind of, I guess it’s not hubris. It’s like, it’s like, I’m humbled by the fact that I recognize that, but it’s, it’s, it’s a earnest commitment.

[00:46:38] It’s like, why would I not do this? Why would I, why would I, you know, why would I ignore the lesson that my dad gave me when he took us to the village Vanguard? Why would I just put all that be like, that’s just a story. It’s like, no, no, no, that was a lesson. That was a lesson.

[00:46:59] Radha: Convince people that this work is important. Like, and this is not the metrics question. I, cause the metrics thing, like, I hate that question. And, but because you and I think both, believe there’s value to this, right? Um, and I can like the mission you’re on. It’s like, you’re so passionate about it and you believe in it so deeply.

[00:47:32] And that’s so palpable. And I feel the same. I’m like, yeah, like even at Autodesk, it like, I was the person, I said foresight so many times, my team got me a little bell. And every time I said foresight, they would bring it because I was like, foresight can solve the world. And like, of course it can’t solve everything.

[00:47:47] But I think that way of thinking and that way of approaching the world. And expanding your sense of like what could be is so useful and so pertinent all the time and especially right now. Um, how do you convince people to give a shit about it?

[00:48:19] Julian: Yeah. So there’s, there’s, there’s a people who don’t need to be convinced. So those are like the, The people who kind of like look up or, you know, smile, look up and just be like, Whoa, wait, what’s this guy talking about? Is it just cause it seems, this seems like a thing. So that, so that, so the, so in the convincing thing, it’s like, is, is coming to the conversation with an unwavering sense of commitment, enthusiasm, and, you know, reminding people, it’s like, you know, finding the way not to antagonize people, which I think is, was, was, uh, was, was a mode that, Um, I managed to kind of like slough off from my academic days, which is like, you got to be a critic.

[00:48:59] Everything, there’s something wrong with everything. Your job is to interrogate what’s wrong and to build on that. There’s something like that. You know, whatever it is, don’t forget that. That doesn’t work on anyone. Cause as soon as you antagonize someone, as soon as you tell someone, it’s like the way you’ve been thinking about the world and the future is wrong.

[00:49:15] Then they’re just like, fuck you. Why should I listen? You know, what are you saying? If you, if you bring something else to it, you almost like at a, at a, I’m not a religious guy, but I almost had an evangelical kind of sense of purpose and direction. They’ll feel it. And I think if you do that and you do that enough, then that’s the convincing part.

[00:49:36] Now, if it’s at the point of, um, the other kind of convincing where it’s like, now I’m talking to structure. So I’m talking to the, you know, the CEO of a company and they’re like, um, they might be like, I’m not sure what the value of this. Is for me, given where I’m at, they might be like, I get what you’re doing.

[00:49:53] It’s beautiful. I read the book. I totally get it. You know, I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m with you, but now I’m just trying to justify it, uh, to my, um, you know, my financial planning committee. I got to go in there. That’s, that’s a, that’s a different kind of conversation. And I think that you have to be prepared just like, just like any other circumstance in a commercial circumstance, someone’s going to be like, I love you guys.

[00:50:16] You guys are great. I just don’t have the money for it. And that, that’s, that’s, you know, that, that, that’s going to happen no matter what you’re doing. I think the, the, the interesting part is to, um, at this particular point that we’re at now in the, you know, in the business cycle or something, I think we’re at, I see it as a trough where creativity and imagination and structure are not in deep harmony.

[00:50:42] Um, and I think maybe this is coordinated partly by just like, you know, like the layoffs that have been going on for the last couple of years. It’s like, Oh, time to cut back. You know, we thought we needed all these creatives, but we don’t. And it’s interesting. Like I, I don’t track it enough to know, Who is getting laid off?

[00:51:01] Um, in some circumstances, I’m sure it’s, I’m not sure it might be like across the board, but also I see like in, uh, we’ve got this, um, LA design community slack. It’s pretty robust kind of community. I don’t know, probably several. Maybe even 10, 000 people in there, whatever. And I just, I saw a note on this morning where someone said, Hey, um, you know, something like, uh, sorry for everyone at Stripe who got laid off to that 10 percent cuts.

[00:51:30] And I had a link to, uh, you know, a post with Jack Dorsey and his beard. Um, but the, The, it feels like, it feels like it’s a lot of creative, I could be totally wrong, but it feels like, okay, that’s access. We don’t need that, or you hear things, you know, it’s the kind of layoffs where, where they’ll bring in McKinsey to justify the, you know, the, the, the hammer coming down and McKinsey will take care of telling them, like, where, where should you be spending money?

[00:51:59] What’s bringing value to organization? If they’re not bringing value to your ad sales. You know, Google, which is now an ad company or, or, you know, or you, you, the project that you’re working on does not have a direct connection to, to the profit centers. Then, then you go. And a lot of times that’s creative because what creative does is it brings new ideas.

[00:52:18] And those ideas at the outset are kind of like, I have no idea how to make money on this. But it seems cool. It starts out at that cool feeling. This is cool. Let’s just put it up and see what happens. And maybe, maybe it’s over time we’ll figure out where, you know, what the monetization strategy is and things kind of slide from imagination to structure.

[00:52:37] And at some point, structure is like, we got it from here. We’re good. Thank you for this, this, this, you know, bright, beautiful, creative little gizmo or widget. But we got it now. We don’t need you anymore. And as much as they might want to keep creativity, you know, in, in, in the house, oftentimes they don’t like they matter of fact, you know, friend of mine, Dennis Crowley, I’ll never forget this.

[00:53:01] He, uh, his company, um, dodgeball got bought by Google. I can say this. It got, it was, you know, everyone knows it got bought by Google. And I remember, I was like, man, that’s amazing. And I remember going to visit them at Google, uh, their, their headquarters there in New York. And he was like, I was like, man, I was just, I was like, man, what are we going to do?

[00:53:18] This is this, you got this great, you know, Mothership. And I remember visiting him and he was like in this kind of behind this glass, kind of in this glass office. It was a little bit, it was a little bit sad because it was like, he was like, Oh, they’re the monkeys. Um, and I said, and he said, Hey, you know, good to see you.

[00:53:34] I was like, I was ready to kind of like, let’s, let’s talk. We’re going to, what are we going to do? Cause now, um, structure recognizes creativity because they got you here. You’re the most imaginative person I know. Like, what are we going to do next? He’s like, okay, this is how it’s going to work. I’m like, getting down to business.

[00:53:48] Like, do we need a whiteboard? Should we get, and he was, he said, this is how it’s going to work. First, we’re going to go to the sushi bar, but don’t fill up. Cause then we’re going to go to the burger bar. And so in his mind, he was just like, I mean, he was like, you know, he confided. He’s like, I’m just, I’m just sitting here waiting to.

[00:54:03] Basically time out because they’re doing whatever they can to crush my dreams and his, when he, when he was finally, when he finally timed out, whatever that timeout is, is rest invest or whatever,

[00:54:15] um,

[00:54:16] Julian: was, uh, you know, party member going to the party. It was amazing. Got a t shirt at t shirt just said in little letters, Google is the crusher of dreams.

[00:54:25] Radha: No,

[00:54:27] Julian: Google is the crusher of dreams. And that was, um, that, that was, that was the vibe and the feeling that Google amazing organization, lots of friends there. Maybe, I don’t know, they might’ve gotten laid off. Who knows? But, but, but it always felt like this is a place where dreams come true, where you can go in as a high creative consciousness, come in and they’re going to be like, Oh my God, I love you.

[00:54:49] I love what you’re able to do. And we’re trying to, we’re trying to make the world a more habitable place. Go over there. Whatever you need. You know, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll figure things out and we’ll do it. And we’ve got incredible scale, right? You know about that. We’ve got these great massive globally network computers.

[00:55:07] What do you need to make this happen? Cause that’s what we were born on. We were born on this vision of a dream of a world where, you know, we indexed all the world’s information. Oh my God, I’m swooning. That’s amazing. Okay. So you recognize creativity and you recognize imagination and you have. the, the resources, the structure, the money, the buildings, the chairs, the desks that I need, I need a pencil and you can do all that.

[00:55:32] And we’re going to do this together. And at some point that is not allowed to happen. And I think it’s a systemic issue that any large structure will deal with at some point, especially if it’s commercial, it’d be like some point it’s just too big. Um, or, or at some point the, uh, you, the, the, the imagination just gets drained.

[00:55:54] out or discouraged or like, you know, like with Dennis and, and, and, you know, especially at the point where like the founder’s leaving, it’s like, let’s get some adults in the room. Let’s get, I don’t want people who are wearing a red, red converse. I want people who wear a nice, a nice floor, shime shoe, a nice English brogue they should be wearing.

[00:56:11] And they should, they should know how to talk in front of an audience and they should have tailored suits and this kind of thing. And then, then you’re like, okay, that’s the beginning of the end. You’d just be, you’d just be a. Kind of, you know, this, this machine just trying to, and I think we’re at that point.

[00:56:27] So this is a long way of saying, I think we’re at that point where, um, where now, uh, imagination and structure are antagonizing each other. Structure doesn’t want to have anything to do with imagination. This is a cartoon version. Um, and, and that means that, that, that there is a possibility of igniting this creative Renaissance that I’m talking about where imagination can see its value and its place in its, in its role in the world.

[00:56:50] Radha: I have one last question, just because I’m curious, which is, and maybe you’re doing this already. I feel like you’re making movements at the moment, but like, if you could, if there’s like a fantasy futures. project. Well, what would that be for you at this point in your journey?

[00:57:18] Julian: It’s, I don’t know if it’s, well, I guess it is, is a project in some ways, but it’s like, if, um, could you imagine a world in which let’s say,

[00:57:32] Walt Disney was a futures company where, where the, everything about it was trying to find the way to help people to imagine, you know, these, these other worlds, which I think Disney, At least what I understand of Disney does a really great job of we’ll take you into a world and we’ll wrap you around it and we’ll allow you to experience it with a sense of play and exploration and a little bit of moments of those kind of like fear.

[00:57:59] I’m not going to die, but this is kind of scary. Let’s do this. And, um, you know, all the other kind of tentacles that it, that it kind of reaches out towards. So ways of telling stories about possible worlds that capture the imagination, not just of. It’s what commercial futures kind of work does. But kind of across the board that that’s that makes makes the way of imagining into futures like legible.

[00:58:27] I sometimes I see it as like, it’s like this. I just use the Disney example because I love like Walt Disney’s early map of what. What Disney was, it’s just a serpentine kind of beautiful mess. It wasn’t like top down. It was all just kind of like, Ooh, this, this is going to connect to this. And this was going to be, so I love that image.

[00:58:46] The other thing that I sort of see and see in that is, you know, like the modern version, it’s something like there are these, there are these poles, you know, And the poles connect, um, these different organizations that exist today. I think it’s like Apple, Patagonia, and teenage engineering. It’s like, it’s like if you could, if you had a Booyah base of the, of the sensibilities of those organizations and the, the, the value, not just the values, but the, the, the, uh, the, the financial and industrial might.

[00:59:24] Because I think if we’re going to, if we’re going to make more habitable worlds, we’re not going to do it just by saying, we’re going to do it. It’s like, I need Tim Cook and his factories and his operational excellence and his, you know, don’t put your design, your, your remarkable, beautiful, amazing design teams on that thing.

[00:59:44] We need to be doing this. It’s almost like if, if we’re, The stories that you hear, I’m sure it’s a very complex, it was very complex kind of series of negotiations and, and all kinds of stuff, but it’s like, um, you know, and, and who knows what Henry Ford’s kind of politics. I mean, we do know what his policies were, but it’s like, if, if the, if we had to go on a war footing suddenly, Um, on a turn of a dime, you know, that, that thing where it’s like, okay, we’re going to all rally in this one direction, we’re going to focus, or maybe a better example is like when, you know, Kennedy said, we’re going to go to the moon in this decade and, and all these resources came together to do this remarkable thing.

[01:00:19] It’s like, we’re going to, we’re going to, spend, you know, however many trillions of dollars in 20, 24 to hand build a spaceship, to get two dudes to walk on the moon, hand build the thing. You know, this is, you know, we got, we, we got, we got, we got two of them. I know the one up there better work. Cause there’s no service center up there.

[01:00:41] We’re not going to send someone up there to tighten a bolt and whoa. Wow. You know, and, and with all the other attendant kind of like social and political conflicts that were going on at the time, Stokey Carmichael saying, it’s like, you know, whitey’s on the moon. Like, what are they doing for us here? Like all that still, we’re able to get our shit together to do this.

[01:01:04] And, you know, so the corollary being like the, um, all of a sudden general motors and Ford or whatever, they stopped making cars and refrigerators and they started making airplanes because we had to. Someone, someone got up and said, look, we got to do this. Fascism isn’t cool. We got to do something about this.

[01:01:22] Otherwise we’re, we’re putting all these things in jeopardy and you know, they’re, they’re complicated and not always fun politics around this, but it got done. We did it. And I think, I think, you know, my personal belief is we were on the right side of history in that one. Same thing with the, with the, you know, with the moon, it’s like that, that shapes so many, it shaped me, you know, it’s just like, I can be an astronaut.

[01:01:47] I want to be an astronaut. Why not look at that? Can’t be an astronaut, be an engineer. You know, that’s, that’s, that seems close enough that

[01:01:59] Radha: we ended up here. I had no idea that we would, but it was wonderful and you did not disappoint Julian. Thank you so, so much. It’s always, always fun chatting with you.

[01:02:11] Um, And thanks for just Sharing your brain with us for a little while.

[01:02:17] Julian: It was, it was lovely to talk to you as always, Radha. Um, I, I’m really excited that, uh, we’re connected this way and that we can, we can work together on, I think, what is really important ambition and mission and dream to just build more habitable worlds.

[01:02:37] Radha: Thank you for tuning in to Future Feelings in collaboration with Deem Audio. You can find our other five episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google, as well as explore Deem’s podcasting program at deemjournal. com forward slash audio. To keep up with my work, follow me on Twitter and Instagram at Radha underscore mystery.