Staying with
Questions

"Dream a little before you think!" ~Toni Morrison

"The map to a new world is in the imagination." ~Robin D. G. Kelley

The questions are in no particular order or priority. Neither are they organized in any themes or topics. This is a living list of questions that will change and morph over time. Expect different questions when you visit.

I welcome you to this journey of questions. I invite you to dream, to nurture radical imagination and imaginaries. And believe that our collective imaginaries can make magic happen. As Ruha Benjamin has eloquently said, "Let your imagination be promiscuous, undisciplined, porous."

An imaginary refers to collective projections of a desirable and feasible future. Hence, our imaginaries are so very crucial in these liminal times between stories.

The questions are here as invitations to imagine beyond the matrix of possibilities defined by the hegemony.

The Questions are our compasses, Radical Imagination, our guide, and Collective Imaginaries, our vision for possible futures.

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
~Letters to a Young Poet,
Rainer Maria Rilke

Some of the central questions that have occurred to me from time to time. They keep evolving and morphing. So, expect different questions or a longer list when you visit next. They are the compasses that keep me moving one step at a time. I don't have the answers. I believe no individual does. But collectively, we can co-create and co-design.

There is no deeper nor more challenging questions than how we will live our lives. These questions reflect my truth which is the only one I can write about authentically.

I do hope you will join me on this journey of staying with the questions, holding the liminal space between stories, and cultivate your intrepid imagination to collectively dream of possible futures outside of the matrix / cage of hegemony.

The questions we ask matter, the questions we choose to stay with matter exponentially more.

Questions are compasses...

1. How do we live the 'being' from which true 'doing' can emerge?

2. What are you more curious about than afraid of?

3. What does it mean for you to live fully alive and passionately on purpose?

4. How do you choose to inhabit your days?

5. How can organizations be designed such that they become spaces that nurture, support and enable conditions of thriving?

6. How can we design communities to become platforms and containers for collective imaginaries and sensemaking?

7. How do we integrate worldviews with world-sense?

8. What does world-sense mean to you?

9. What would technology designed to foster a 'world that works for all' look like, act like, and feel like?
   (Hint: Such tech will definitely not be designed from the hegemonic worldview of power and profit emanating from silicon valley)

10. What collective imaginaries do we need to create a world that is regenerative and pluriversal?

11. What does a global civilization not driven by hegemonic powers look like?

12. What does a Pluriverse mean to you?

13. What does regeneration mean to you?

14. How can we become earth citizens instead of only citizens of nation states?

15. What if we could navigate radical uncertainty with fierce compassion and radical tenderness — for ourselves, for each other, for all sentient beings, and for this beautiful, fragile Planet?

16. What might those choices and decisions made from a place of compassion and imagination look like?

17. How would we envision our collective future from a place of radical tenderness?

18. How can we collectively hold space for the new shoots to emerge from the debris and decay of this collapsing world?

19. How can we be stewards of those narratives that have been disowned and denied for centuries — those unheard, unseen, unacknowledged ways of being, seeing, sensing, and knowing which can be our salvation towards regenerative futures?

20. What is the essence of a world that contains multitudes of narratives — a world where many worlds fit?

21. How can we collectively build the capacities of 'power within' that eschews 'power over'?

22. How do we decolonize our imagination and imaginaries from the invisible hands of the hegemony?

23. What can we do to nurture the imaginal cells of possible futures?

24. Paint, dance, sing, write, create your vision of the world you wish to inhabit, inherit, and leave behind?

25. What songs, poetry, music inspire you to reimagine, recreate, regenerate?

Poetry that inspire me...

“I live my life in widening circles”

Rainer Maria Rilke

I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I will give myself to it.

I circle around God, around the primordial tower.
I’ve been circling for thousands of years
and I still don’t know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?

Just Beyond Yourself

David Whyte

Just beyond
yourself.

It’s where
you need
to be.

Half a step
into
self-forgetting
and the rest
restored
by what
you’ll meet.

There is a road
always beckoning.

When you see
the two sides
of it
closing together
at that far horizon
and deep in
the foundations
of your own
heart
at exactly
the same
time,
that’s how
you know
it’s the road
you
have
to follow.

That’s how
you know
it’s where
you
have
to go.

That’s how
you know
you have
to go.

That’s
how you know.

Just beyond
yourself,
it’s
where you
need to be.

Speak

Faiz Ahmed Faiz

Speak, your lips are free.
Speak, it is your own tongue.
Speak, it is your own body.
Speak, your life is still yours.

See how in the blacksmith's shop
The flame burns wild, the iron glows red;
The locks open their jaws,
And every chain begins to break.

Speak, this brief hour is long enough
Before the death of body and tongue:
Speak, 'cause the truth is not dead yet,
Speak, speak, whatever you must speak.

Let This Darkness be a Bell Tower

Rainer Maria Rilke

Quiet friend who has come so far,

feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,

what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.

In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.

And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.

Add your questions...

The list above are just some of my questions. If you'd like to add yours, please submit them using the form below. The submitted question will appear in a separate section below with the name of the sender (only if you say yes).

The criteria for the questions are simple:

• Challenge the dominant narrative and hegemonic status quo

• Inspire expansive and inclusive thinking and imagination

• Respect the myriad different cultures, norms, beliefs, and stories that exist

• Understand that the dominant narrative is just one of many

• Indicate what you stand for (not only what you stand against)

• Reflect the futures you'd like to inherit and inhabit as well as leave behind

• Express your vision of regenerative futures

Submit your Questions

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