Welcome to Fresh Thinking
An introduction...
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Albert Einstein
Our problems are all too apparent.
The cost of living crisis, health, care, education and justice systems on the brink of collapse, inequalities that are wider then ever before and we stand on the edge of a environmental catastrophe, climate change and species collapse. Some call it ECOCIDE.
For most of my life we have faced such awful problems. The Cuban Missile Crisis, The Cold War, never-ending hot wars, wars on drugs and terror, pandemics and deep, prolonged recessions.
We have not found solutions to these problems, as such, but we have found ways to live with them. To survive and, for some, apparently to thrive in spite of them. But perhaps our luck, or ingenuity are running out?
If we keep trying to solve the problems with the same ‘thinking’ we are likely to deepen and accelerate them. This is why we need to transform ourselves, our communities, our species and our relationship with all life on earth.
Thinking
But what of the ‘thinking’1 that we used to create these problems?
How apparent is our thinking to us?
And even if it were apparent, how might we go about ‘thinking differently’?
What does it mean to ‘think differently’?
Thinking new thoughts?
Changing the content of our thoughts?
The process of our thinking?
The way we use our minds?
The way I use my mind?
The way you use yours?
The way our minds can work together to generate thoughts beyond the capacity of any one of us?
Might we then be able to solve our problems?
Or would we just create different problems?
Or perhaps learn how to keep out running them?
Who knows?
Fresh Thinking
This project will explore the way we think and offer some insights and practices that help us to think differently. To develop Fresh Thinking, to solve some problems, almost certainly to create some new ones, and maybe to help us learn how to live, so that we might ‘die with pride’ in leaving behind a more sustainable and generative future.
Fresh Thinking is an invitation to explore ideas, old and new, that might open up possibilities for a different world. A shift in values. A shift in what we know and how we know it.
I will draw on theory, practice and personal experience in the work. But I would also like to draw on your experience and insight, so please do share your thoughts, either in the comments or by sending me an email.↩︎
I will use ‘Thinking’ as a short hand for how and what we think and our feelings and actions that our thinking shapes.