100 - In conversation with Walidah Imarisha.

[Music] Welcome all to this our 100th episode. Who could have imagined back at the start of the COVID pandemic with our first bird song infused episode with Sam Lee and Maya Rose Craig that we'd ever have made it this far? It's been such a journey, such a huge honor. From the outset, I've had a policy of never doing an episode with two white male guests, a rule I managed to hold until episode 98 and I'm sure you'll agree that it has so enriched this journey introducing you and me to so many remarkable people, viewpoints and visions of the future from all over the world. I have a few different important announcements to make before we get into today's episode. The first is, and I pause for breaths before I say this, that today's episode, episode 100 will be the final episode of From What If to What Next. Allow me to explain. It's been such a joy finding such amazing people and facilitating these time travel infused leaps into possible futures. However, finding two amazing people every two weeks does take a great deal of time and energy. I'm currently in the middle of writing the follow-up to from what is to what if with a July deadline, unless I really focus all my time and attention onto it and minimise distractions, I'm not going to make it. I think also that perhaps the format has done everything I wanted it to and there are new ways I want to further explore the power of helping people to take a more fluid approach to time, to travelling backwards and forwards through time, to experiencing possible futures. So stay tuned for future projects, some of which subscribers have been given taste as of over the last few months. I've always loved the Bristol Independent Record Label Sarah Records. It ran from 1987 until in August 1995 when they released their 100th record and un-predicted by anyone declared that it was "a day for destroying things" and that that would be their final ever release. I've always loved the artistic integrity of saying we've created a body of work of which we are immensely proud, which stands on its own merit and into which we have put everything and we're happy with that. In the advert they took out in the music press to announce this, they wrote, "Nothing should be forever. Stopping a record label after 100 perfect releases is the most gorgeous pop art statement ever. The first act of revolution is destruction and the first thing to destroy is the past, scary, like falling in love. It reminds us we're alive." I always admired what they did and today with the same butterflies and goose bumps that must have accompanied them doing it, I get to do the same thing. I'm immensely grateful that you've shared this journey with me. Together we've got to meet some of my greatest inspirations, Marianne Cabar, Adrianne Marie Brown, Brian Ynoe, so, so, many more, all of whom have made a nonsense of that saying about how you should never meet your heroes. We've also met and been blown away by many new heroes, some of the people out there doing the most incredible, compassionate, imaginative work to turn our futures around. There were episodes when I had to go and lie in a field afterwards because my head was spinning with the beauty of what we had discussed. There were the events we did with real actual live audiences where I really felt the love for what we were doing. We fearlessly dived into all manner of hugely expansive what if questions. No topic was too big. Every episode will always be available online in perpetuity for you to revisit, to refresh your connection to a world that remains entirely possible just about. I've tried to fill your imagination with possibilities, things that may feel like a stretch right now, but which are still entirely possible if we can cultivate that shared longing for them. I really hope that what we've done with these 100 episodes has meant something to you. I hope we've moved you, delighted you, challenged you, motivated you. I hope with all my heart that after these 100 episodes you feel differently about the future, more hopeful, a little more in love with it possibly, more empowered to step up and make it happen. If so, then our work is done. It would be really lovely to hear in the comments what this podcast has meant to you. Thanks to everyone who suggested episodes, who were sent in comments and questions they all meant a lot. I hope all this hasn't come as too much of a shock. If you've been one of our subscribers, I'd like to personally thank you for your belief in what we've been trying to achieve with these podcasts. I'd like to ask if you feel you'd like to continue your support through Patreon because although there won't be podcasts, I will regularly be sharing the many interviews I've been doing for the new book, exclusive interviews you won't find anywhere else with some incredible people. I'll be sharing some of our field recordings from the future tracks only with you and that when this new book comes out in the spring of 2025, I'll include in the acknowledgments the names of everyone who has supported me during the process of writing it. I'm a great believer that we need to support our self-supporting writers and activists and your support means a huge amount and makes so much possible. Thank you. To sweeten this news, there are two pieces of good news for you. The first is that if you've been a subscriber, you will have heard our Ministry of Imagination bonus episodes, six amazing imagination infused policy ideas every two weeks. For some time, I've been thinking these are amazing. We should gather them together and do something with them. And this year when 40% of the world's population in 64 countries go to the polls, we thought the world needs these policies and urgently. And so we have lovingly transcribed them, painstakingly edited them and turned them into a beautifully designed document containing all 600 plus policies, the Ministry of Imagination Manifesto. As subscribers, you will get it next week. You'll be the first people to see it before it is more widely released. You're going to love it. It's something really, really very special which you enabled. Spread it far and wide. It's a powerful tool. And the other bit of good news? Well, this being our final episode, it's an opportunity to share with you a guest that I have wanted to have on this podcast ever since I first started it. It's taken some time, but she said yes and I couldn't be more delighted. Our final guest is the great Waleedha Imarisha. Somebody whose work I have long admired. Waleedha is an educator, writer, public scholar and spoken word artist. She co-edited two anthologies, Octavia's Brood and another world is possible. She is one of my huge inspirations and so to get to sit down with her was a huge honor. I hope you're going to love this conversation as much as I did. It was recorded just before Christmas and I started by asking her to introduce herself. Waleedha, welcome to our very final episode, episode 100 of From What If To What Next. And it's an absolute honor to have you here. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for inviting me. I'm very excited to be part of it and to send it off. Thank you. So I wonder if you might just start by introducing yourself to listeners who might not know who you are? Yeah, I'm a writer and an educator. I teach universities. I'm currently teaching at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon in the United States in the Black Studies Department. I do a lot of work around what I call visionary fiction, the intersections of science fiction and social change. So as part of that, I am the co-editor of an anthology called Octavia's Brood Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice movements. And currently I am actually working on a science fiction documentary hybrid film. Fabulous. And if anyone listening hasn't read Octavia's Brood, it's highly recommended. And so I was so delighted to have you as the final guest because for me, you're one of the great spokespeople of the Radical Imagination, for speculative fiction, for liberated futures rooted in dreaming, for many of the themes that we've explored during the 99 episodes that have proceeded this one. Before we start, I'd love to invite you if you might just join me over here in our time machine, for its very final flight for now, at least. And over the last 99 episodes, we've clocked up some serious mileage in our time machine with over 30,000 years on the clock. And regular listeners will be pleased to know that we're going to be sharing plans for the time machine in the new book that I'm working on at the moment. And for this final voyage to 2030, we've given the time machine a really good clean and tidy up and filled it with some very beautiful flower arrangements. So, we'll either, if you just make yourself a home, we just had the armchair there, are pulsed with some very beautiful fabric that we bought in the market in Accra in 2057, one of the softest fabrics ever made. So do settle in and I'm just going to set the controls for 2030, that's it. There we go. Okay, brace yourself. I'm just going to release the hand brake. Ooh, there we go. go and you might like to imagine that the years between now and 2030 are rushing past the windows years when change happened so much faster than anyone imagined when the world mobilized to decarbonize so much faster than anyone imagined it would have done back in 2023 when moves to embrace diversity to build true social justice moved again so much faster than anyone could have imagined and this 2030 is not the finished article it's no utopia but it's not a dystopia either and things have moved so fast and I'm just gonna bring us down to land here in this street here and I'm gonna pop the doors open I'd love to invite you to take a little step out and take us on a walk around in that world that is the result of your longing the 2030 of your dreams the one that exists on the outer reaches of possibility but is possible nonetheless can you bring it alive for us what does it look like and feel like taste like and smell like I mean I would imagine that there is more mass mobilization of people in the streets as well as many other organizing techniques and strategies I would hope that we were continuing to make strong international connections with our movements for struggle you know I think that systems of oppression will have increased their repression resistance breeds repression so I would hope we were prepared for that and we were able to keep the forward momentum going despite the increased repression so I think as you said this is a this is a step along the way and we should be celebrating movements forward so perhaps we have more reclaimed gardens from empty lots in cities perhaps we have more housing takeovers of empty buildings to provide housing for houseless folks hopefully more community spaces to gather to educate to mobilize and to work together collectively and hopefully that is you know enough to help us continue the movement forward because at the end of the day you know the work is is never done but it's certainly not done as long as a white supremacist heteropetriarchal capitalist system is running the globe absolutely thank you thank you so much and I read an interview with you where you said I think it's crucial to challenge the notion of linear time which is a method of social control could you say a bit more about that what's the problem with linear time and what having a more fluid approach to time looks like in practice and also who you get inspiration from in this regard who are the activists or artists who do time fluidity the best do you think so three questions in one well I'll start with the last one I think you know black quantum futurism which is an anthology as well as a collective in Philadelphia in the US Rashida Phillips and more mother have really inspired that understanding for me they've been doing a lot of work around nonlinear blackness and you know it's been very inspiring Gabriel Teodros who is an MC from Seattle who has a story in Octavius Brude he does a lot of musical work around nonlinear time in fact has an album called colored people's time machine and you know I think that is also you know a really important and powerful way to explore this work through through music I'm a writer so I am very focused on words but it is exciting to be able to engage with with other folks's imaginings in these other mediums that I don't work in so you know I think that there are lots and lots of folks and you know historically currently and futuristically who are doing work around nonlinear time I would say you know the reason I say that there are a number of reasons one is that I think the notion of linear time and especially the notion of constant linear time is a foundational part of how capitalism works right we have to make time constant we have to make it into set commodities to be able to trade it for goods and services to live and so even though that's certainly not how time happens and I think we would all admit that after going through the beginning of the pandemic and feeling like every day was a year and feeling a sense of complete timelessness you know but also quantum physicists are clear that time is not constant or linear so I think it's important to recognize that the emphasis on that is really a focus on being able to you know chop up time and sell it as any other resource I think also the notion of linear time time that only moves in one direction serves as a mechanism of social control because what it says is that the past is unreachable it is gone the present the present is all you have the future is unknowable so get get what little comfort you can in the present because the past and the future are inaccessible to you and that breeds a sense of powerlessness it cuts you off from all those who have struggled before and all of those who are struggling now in the future and it makes you focus on sort of your own material comforts in the moment because if that's all you have then why struggle to change things and I think it's important you know to recognize that no cultures of color you know historically before colonization or many of them after think of time as linear or constant or you know one directional that there are a million different conceptions of time but all of them are actually much more accurate and closer to what now quantum physicists are saying which you know as brown people are like welcome welcome to the party we've been here along but you know you're now so good good good so I think you know that that for me has been really important in general but it's really important for thinking about organizing because those who who came before you know are the foundations that we are working with and those that are coming after we are we are in communion with and so rather than thinking of ourselves as isolated in this moment in time we have to think of ourselves as this sort of you know constellation of resistance and of visioning and of winning and I guess I would say that the last piece right now I could talk about this all day but last piece right now is when we think about time as nonlinear we think about the ways we can pull those liberated futures we want in the present in the future into the present I think we often frame liberation or social change as something we probably won't see in our lifetimes I think we need to be thinking about how can we be making those future liberated communities now how do we how do we live that and it may not be every second of every day it may only be Tuesday nights when we have a specific gathering with a specific amount of folks it could be for five days a year when we have a specific you know conference or collective meeting that we go to it could be with specific people or person but to begin to think about this is actually how I would love for all of us to live this is the kind of support and abundance and agency and self-determination and care that I want us all to have we can pull that into the present and we can do it over and over and over again until we just sort of make it seamlessly infinite so it so it the idea of activism as a as a form of time travel does that sort of feel like what's happening you know that that idea that we're able to go to the past go to the future bring bring those things into the present in that way you were talking about it feels like a like a like a form of time travel in that way yeah I mean I think time travel is an interesting notion because it depends obviously on how you think of it but I think often it is supporting the notion as these points as fixed and you're traveling between them sort of you're taking a high-speed train through different moments in in history or in future rather than saying these moments actually all exist at the in the same space and they're all actually accessible to us not just in sort of what lessons can we learn from the past but in a real engaged way we are actively dreaming with the liberation dreams of our ancestors and it is not something they have left for us it is something they're doing in conjunction with us. And I think again, for me, rooting in cultures of color, pre-colonization, we see that. We see that as recognizing that the past is not ever past, and that the ancestors are present. And I think it's really a sort of western colonial notion to frame things like being able to talk to ancestors as magical realism. Because for many folks, Nadiokorra for said this, that's just realism. That is just life. That is their understanding of how time and energy and matter exist. And so, you know, I think part of that is this, you know, the colonial sort of defense of itself, right? The notion of time has to move in one way. It has to sort of progress consistently, because that is used to justify, you know, colonization of the entire world to say, well, we are the driving force making things better. And that's why I always question these, like, you know, the sci-fi futures that are all chrome and all white and very sterile looking, that, you know, the reality is, is that there are, there are wisdoms, there are ways of living. There are ways of creating, and there are creations that ancestors made for specifically cultures of color that, you know, we have access to and we need access to to think about how do we actually develop a different relationship? One, that's not based on domination and control. That's not based on exploitation, but is based on connectivity and collective care. And that's for all of us as humans, that's for every living thing on this planet, that's for the planet itself, that's for the universe, that's for the multiverse, right? We're all made of the same, the same star stuff. So, to recognize that, you know, that is, that is brilliant wisdom, that again, physics is just sort of coming to now, but this has been millennia upon millennia of understanding of how the world works for for many peoples around the globe. So, you see, what you were saying about about ancestors I interviewed Nikita Armani, about African, traditional African understandings of time, and he was talking about how, about ancestors and about how he said, and the ancestors are always here, he said, the room is always very crowded, was how he puts it, you know, which is definitely not something, like I guess in a kind of white European tradition is just not part of the picture at all, you know. I can't imagine being in the room with my ancestors, I imagine they were mostly ghastly individuals, really. Right, yeah, I mean, I think it's interesting that the sort of, you know, part of the work I do and the reason I create the term visionary fiction is to sort of break down these labels of this is science fiction, this is horror, this is fantasy, because, well, because nerd spent a lot of time arguing about the first of all, and I'm like, but we don't need to do all that now, let's, let's stay focused here, y'all. But also recognizing that, I mean, genres are not part of art, they're part of capitalism, right, the notion of being able to define something by a simple label, put it in a box that, again, then you can sell to people is a function of capitalism. It's not a function of art, no artist, thinks of their work in that way. But so I think it's interesting to talk about that. I do a lot of work around horror, and I think horror is often, for me, the manifestation of white terror, of the realities of the past coming to haunt them. And honestly, sometimes I enjoy watching horror, especially if it's with gentrifiers or folks who are, you know, moving into places that they shouldn't be, because I'm like, well, you shouldn't be that. Yeah, we're about to see what can happen if you're somewhere you shouldn't be, and you're messing with things you shouldn't mess with. So, you know, I think that, that, I think the fact that, that it feels like, you know, western white cultures relegate the notion of ancestors of those who came before still being here into the space of horror, versus cultures of color who, who embrace it as, you know, a sense of strength and resilience and connection, I think speaks to our understanding of, as you said, who those people were, and, and what they would be bringing us. And I read an interview, an article that you wrote in 2015 where you said, that you felt that our justice movements desperately need science fiction, which I thought was fabulous. And what, can you tell us a bit more about that? What is it that the activist movements are getting wrong? And what would it look like if they got it right? I mean, I definitely don't want to see if people are getting things wrong, you know, I think that's part, to me part of a sort of quantum framework of organizing is that there is space for everything. There are as many entry points as there are people. There are as many ways to work within this movement as there are people who are willing to do it with principle. I think we have to have principles, we have to have values, we have to be clear about there are things we will not do or there were, there are things that are, you know, antithetical to our notion of a liberated future. But within that context, I think it's important to, you know, to embrace as many different ways of organizing and creating new futures, even if I personally don't do that, I'm not interested in doing that. Even if I don't necessarily see the usefulness in it, as long as it is being done with principle, who am I to say in 100 years what is going to be the most useful thing? I think in that case, you show respect to what people are doing or you at least be quiet and let them do their thing and you do your thing and hope that you're all are pushing in somewhat enough of the same direction that you will be able to move the behemoth. So I just want to be clear about that because, you know, I'm not trying to say this is the one solution. The way I think that one of the places where the most substantial social changes happen is when folks allow themselves to dream unrealisticly according to the society that they're in. If you are, if you are trying to create change that the system is allowing, then most likely you are creating reform that the system has put into place to sort of absorb the shock of demands for change. So they've said, okay, well, we will allow this much change because it still allows us to function. So we won't give it to them, but if they demand enough, we can move to that space and then they can feel like they want and we can just continue on with business as usual. True liberation lies outside the boundaries of realistic social change because we have been indoctrinated by these systems to believe that the true methods of liberation are fantastical, our science fiction. And that's why, you know, our premise with Octavius Brut is all organizing as science fiction. If we are dreaming a liberated world, we are dreaming outside the bounds of what we've all known. But that is not something new. Every oppressed group, every person fighting for real substantive change for liberation, for freedom from colonialism, they were dreaming and possible dreams. And they made them happen and they changed the entire world. So I think the control of our imaginations is incredibly important. I don't think it's a, it's not a coincidence that science fiction and fantasy, which I also include superheroes is a genre that is so captivating to people. And it is no coincidence that it is framed as completely separate from our world, rather than saying, oh, these are just potential outgross of our world. Because if that was the case, then we would recognize, oh, well, then we can change anything. So it sort of has to be walled off and it's okay, it's escapism. You can go watch this movie for two hours or read this book, but it has nothing to do with real life. When in reality, it has everything to do with real life. So that is part of the work that I'm doing. And I think that especially for institutions where we have told, then told that they are, you know, eternal, like apocalypse, I am eternal. But you know, that that it is important to have a space then to say, okay, well, if this is impossible, let's create a space where the impossible becomes something we can at least explore, you know, it's just a thought experiment. It has no repercussions right now. So that folks can practice thinking beyond, you know, the boundaries of what we've been given. I think, you know, Mary and Kava talks about hope is a discipline. I think, you know, imagination is a practice. And we have to do that collectively as well. We can all do our individual work as well. but we have to be collectively dreaming because that is where the true liberatory power lies is in us coming together. We don't have to have the same exact dream, but we have to have enough of a shared dream to again be able to push in the same in the same direction, even if we're doing it from different angles with different force. Yeah, I read you wrote, you called for people to be utterly unrealistic in our organizing, which I thought was just beautiful. Are there movements that you look at or activists or practitioners that you look at that you think are doing that well? Where do you see activists embracing the impossible in the activism that they do successfully or well? I mean, I think it's happening constantly and all the time and it's always happened. And again, neither myself nor my co-editor Adrian Marie Brown were trying to say we're coming up with a brand new idea. As Octavia Ebutler said, there's nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns. So we are just saying, under the light of this new sun, what does this old information and knowledge look like? And so, I think folks are doing it and have been doing it. I think one very powerful example that I've done some writing about is the Black Freedom Summer of 2020 in the response to the murder of George Floyd, a Black man by police here in the US, and the international outcry that happened. And it was part of the Black Lives Matter movement, which existed well before. But one of the powerful movements within that was shifting to say defund the police or abolish the police, which is a much more "unrealistic" idea. I've been a abolitionist believing in the abolition of police prisons and all carceral systems for decades. And even within movements for change, you sort of feel in or you felt in the past marginalized. Like folks would say, yes, that's a great idea. It'd be great to not have police in prisons, but it's never going to happen. So let's not waste our time thinking about that. Let's actually focus on what we can achieve. And because of folks who have been holding this work again for decades, really clearly calling it abolition traces it back to the abolition of slavery. So centuries, things can move very fast. I felt like I woke up and suddenly everyone was talking about abolition. And it was being debated on CNN if it was a possibility. And it was being vilified and it was being maligned and it was being misrepresented. But it was being discussed as a real possibility when that had not been my experience dealing with even some movements let alone the mainstream. And so, you know, I think that for me was a very important lesson. I think we talk about, you know, it's the tilling of the soil, but you never know when that will sprout. So you, you know, we do have to just continue, you know, in a sense holding faith that we have planted as well as we can and we are nurturing as well as we can. And you know, things will grow and sometimes they grow incredibly quickly. And I was like, oh, I got a, I got to catch up with you all. I thought I thought I was a head, but your blocks ahead now. I'll wait for you. You know, the still. Yeah, the prison abolition movement is such an extraordinary inspiration like that, I think, because it is a seemingly impossible question. But then it opens up all those questions about, yeah, but if we abolish the prisons, we'd have to have a very different education system. Yeah, keep going. And, you know, it opens up all those different questions. And I read something that you wrote where you said the left has become rooted in what is and we often forget to envisage what could be. I wonder what you think that wider global movements for climate justice and for social justice could learn from the experience of keeping a what if question like what if there were no prisons alive in a context where that seems impossible for so long? Are there any tools? Are there any practices, any approaches that could be more widely adopted that serve to keep big what if questions alive over time? Yeah, I mean, I think it's part of Octavia's brewed and then, you know, since then, myself and Adrian and other contributors developed different workshops to support folks in doing that. So we didn't just want to put out this anthology and say, well, this is it. We want it to be a starting place for folks to then engage in their own collective, liberatory dreaming. And so, you know, there are a number of workshops, one that I developed that directly kind of involves that that notion is the people's encyclopedia 2070. And so it's you're writing entries in an encyclopedia from the year 2070 as if we have been winning every battle at that point. And so you are either talking about real existing issues or movements or people or you are making up sort of future, you know, incidents or movements. A lot of times folks will be like, this is how we abolished prisons or this is when the last prison closed. The first one, you know, I wrote was about was about the Black Lives Matter movement in 2014. Really seeing the ways that especially the the leadership of Black youth was being critiqued even within sort of, you know, liberal spaces, you know, trying to determine what mechanisms of resistance were acceptable. And rather than sort of writing a diatribe on why that was messed up, I thought about the fact that in 50 years, none of these people are going to be remembered, but who the people who are critiquing the movement, but who will be remembered is these courageous visionary Black youth who risked everything. Because that's what we remember when we looked back 50 years ago, we're looking at civil rights or third world liberation movements or the queer liberation movement or women's liberation movement or any of these the anti-colonial movements of the time. We are not remembering the detractors except incredibly negatively. We are remembering the the the work that that brought about the change. So, you know, I wrote the first entry into the encyclopedia about that just from the future sort of looking back and saying even though these youth were being critiqued at the time and sort of framing it in a way of like, can you imagine who would critique this, you know, that the youth were successful and it's not off of global movements and, you know, X, X, Y, and Z. So, I think one of the useful things about this workshop that I found is an encyclopedia entry, you know, is it is both sort of general and specific. It tells you what happened. It gives you a couple steps but you don't have to it's not a you know, a dissertation. You don't have to go back and write every single step and cite your sources. So, it becomes useful because if folks are saying, well, we want to, you know, it's the year 2050 and that is when universal healthcare was instituted in the United States. Then you look back and create a couple sort of milestones that got you there. Well, you know, in 2030, folks rose up and had sit-ins and dions and pushed for this legislation and then in 2050 because of this organization of coalition, right. So, it allows that change that I think as you were saying first seems so unrealistic to actually seem like a few concrete steps away to think about and with this kind of timeline of saying, oh, okay, well in five years that actually does seem like maybe that is realistic and then in 10 years after that that does seem realistic and yeah, and then we're there. Oh, so all we got to do is do it. That's great. And I think, you know, especially the writing it as fact, right. Encyclopedia entry is this happened. This was the year that we abolished prisons. This was the year that borders were eliminated. It is a fact. It is a futuristic certainty in the same way that there are historical certainties. And I believe that that helps us claim these futures with the same strength and tenacity that we claim the past. Those futures exist. We just have to make them, but they are a certainty. They are not a possibility. So Rashida Phillips and the Black Quantum Futurism work that she does, she talks a lot about literally about time travel, about building time machines and finding ways to open up kind of wormholes through time and all this sort of thing. Is that a useful tool for you or it sounds to me like more that you're for you. the tool of getting people to move their thinking into the future or into the past is through storytelling more in that kind of way than literally in the way that she does talking about time travel as a practice. Oh, I mean, yeah, I love Rashida's work and the Black Quantum Futurisms and again, I think it's all important. This is, I do this work because I feel like this is what I have to contribute given who I am and how I move in the world politically and creatively. It does, I mean, I wouldn't wish to give other things. As I said, I'm making a film. I'm not a filmmaker. I'm working with very talented filmmakers. And it's not something I would have thought to do on my own, but a, you know, my friend Jordan Flaherty brought the idea to me and said, hey, do you want to create this film or we can show what an abolitionist liberated future looks like so that it can feel more tangible to people. And I said, yes, that's a great idea. I don't know how to make a film and he's like, we'll figure it out. So, you know, I, I am a writer. I am a storyteller. And so I root in that. But I think at the end of the day, I mean, everything is story regardless of, you know, it's just different ways of frame. We get information. We get data. How do we make sense of that data? We create a story out of it. And, you know, I think the truth is trying to create, you know, the story that best fits all of all of the data. But, you know, really what we're doing is world building. As you said, I think it becomes overwhelming to think about pulling apart this existing system for on purpose, right? It is complicated. It is humongous. It is a little viot then. It is the bureaucracy is horrific. And so, you're, okay, I want to change this. But oh, okay, well, but first we have to change this. Well, if we don't change this, then we can't change that. I think it's more empowering to step back and say, what is the world you want then? What is the world you want? What would an education system look like in a liberated future? How would people get food in a liberated future? How would health be maintained and supported? And I think that that activity for me has proven helpful for folks to see the interconnected nature of all of these issues, to recognize that it's not about just working in this one area, doing this one reform, but it's about seeing the ways that it all connects. So, even if we are doing sort of reform, reform pending revolution work, we are thinking about it as a collective whole rather than just this is my piece of the work over here that I've broken off. So, just to say that I love what Black quantum of eutersomes has been doing, I have taken workshops with them and have been very inspired and amazed. And I love the creation of sort of physical manifestations of time travel as you know, you were saying whether it's a mechanism or something else. And so I think yeah, it's yes and we need all of it. We need all of it. And so in your own work, when you're writing a story that is trying to bring to life a liberated abolitionist future, how do you sustain nurture and sustain your own radical imagination through doing that? And how do you, any kind of advice for people about how to engage their imagination in being able to think into futures like that and spaces like that? Yeah, I think it is challenging. Most of us have grown up in the same sort of white supremacist heteropatriarchal capitalist society. We receive the same messages. It is something that society has tried to embed in us. So it is challenging and we're working to push beyond. So I guess number one, I would just tell people to be gentle and patient with themselves individually and collectively. That this as I said, that's why I say imagination is a practice. I feel like it is okay. And much many of the workshops that I facilitate are done collectively where you're doing collective world building based on specific principles and social issues. So that as you're, you know, you're saying, oh, what if we did this? Someone else in the group could be like, yeah, but is that really an alignment with this principle that we said we wanted? And it's not a shutting down. It is a reminder to continue stretching and to continue aligning with our values and principles. And so it's very easy to steer off course because that is what we've been told. You know, that is what, you know, we have encountered in every area of our life. So I think, you know, it is important to practice it again individually, but absolutely collectively, whether it is with friends or family or your organizing collective or your nonprofit group, whether it's just a 10 minute check-in at the beginning or end of, of, you know, meetings of saying, you know, what's another aspect of this future we're fighting for? And, you know, you can create a running list. There's ways to do it that are small, but that keeps centering you in that and that are ongoing. That's, that's the piece, you know, Adrian Marie Brown really calls it, you know, an experimenting ground, a space of, of experimentation, of exploration of play. It's a space where you can try out these ideas without having real world consequences. And I think that it's important to have those spaces. But it's challenging to do. I write my own stories and I find myself sliding into sort of a more traditional narrative and I'm like, oh, nope, we can't do that. We're not going to have it one savior show up and nope, nope, nope, got to fix that. You know, or with the film that I'm making, I, you know, was working with a group of brilliant folks and we spent almost a year every week spending, you know, at least an hour or two world building and asking these questions. And I've been doing this work for a long time and it was challenging for me to say, you know, it's a story that centers on Black youth. And so we were like, yeah, let's have like Harriet Tubman Middle School t-shirts. And then we're like, there wouldn't be school. School is oppressive. How would education happen? What is education? What does that mean? And so, you know, I think that it, it's a wonderful exercise and you have to do it recognizing you're not going to reach the end. But it allows us to create more and more captivating and empowering visions that we can then work to pull into our present. And then novelist Don Delilo once wrote, "Longing on a large scale is what makes history," which I think is one of my favorite quotes ever. I wonder, I wonder to what extent you, like what, what longing means to you in the context of the work that you do. And to what extent you feel that your role as a writer is to, is to engender and nurture longing for different futures. Yeah, I mean, I think for me, it's important to recognize visionary fiction, the, you know, that again, the term that I started using to talk about these intersections of social change and speculative fiction. It is inextricable from organizing, from, you know, concrete change in the world. It's not, it is sort of the the place of thinking that helps you move towards acting. But it is not something I think that just exists in isolation. And so I think I've seen some folks engage with it sort of more as like a sort of self-help. How do I actualize or envision my liberated future? I'm like, nope, that's not it. I mean, you can do that if you want. Just don't call it visionary fiction because it's not because you need to be, we can, we can change ourselves, but it has to be in the context of larger movements for struggle and thinking about how do we not only tear down existing oppressive institutions, but what are we building in their place? And that's, that to me is the point. What are we building in the place? And who do we need to be to be able to build them, right? And then do the work, but we have to do the work. So I think, you know, dreaming, I, I, dreaming is imperative. And I always say dreaming is serious business. But it, it has to be followed by action. And that, again, that can be, there are billions of different entry points to action, but it has to be followed by action. It can't just be a thought experiment because these issues are not theoretical issues. They are life and death issues that are killing, you know, everyone at the end of the day and disproportionately affecting people of color and other marginalized and oppressed peoples. Absolutely. And you mentioned Octavia Butler a few times and when Adrian Marie Brown was on episode 50, she, she did too. I wonder, you know, if, if If one of the legacies of this podcast is that more people read Octavia Butler books, then our work would be well done. I wonder if you were to recommend people the best place to start with Octavia Butler. Could you recommend a good entry point into the canon of Octavia Butler? What did Adrian say? I can't remember. That was 50 episodes ago. I think that might have been the parable of the Sower, but I don't remember. Quite me on that. Well, I would say people should go back and listen to episode 50 then. What Adrian said. I mean, I think Adrian has done a lot more focused work. I mean, obviously I read and study and teach Octavia Butler's work, but I think Adrian has engaged with it in such a both thoughtful intellectual way as well as an artistic human emotional way, which I think is what Octavia's work is. And I think that is the best way to engage with it. So I don't actually, I don't know that there's a bad entry point into Octavia Butler. And I think one of the great things about Octavia is that her work is very, there are consistent themes and conversations, but the settings are very different. So it offers great entry points. If you want to, if you're more of like a hardcore sci-fi person and you're like, I want to talk about aliens, well, she's got, she's got you. You've got Lillis Brood. If you want to, if you're all about post apocalyptic landscapes and you're like the walking dead is my jam, then you've got parable of the Sower. If you want to talk about X-Men and Mutants, you've got Wild Seed. There, you know, you want to talk about vampires fledgling. There are, I think all of her work is powerful. And so I think it is kind of, it's another, you know, multi entry point of what space feels most compelling to you. That's the space to walk into. So maybe just look at the, don't, no spoilers. Don't go to Wikipedia and spoil. Because, you know, look at shorts and offses of the books and see what sounds most powerful and then dive in. Beautiful. Thank you. The last question, and the last question from this, from this podcast actually is, and you've touched a little bit on this before, but I read an interview with you again where you said, "I envision my approach to my work with the idea that imaginations are practice." And you've said that again during this. I wonder if you could tell us a bit more about few. What it means to have imagination as a practice. Maybe some closing words that people can take off into their own experience, into their own practice about what living a life in which imagination is a practice might look like. Yeah. I mean, I, Octavia, working on Octavia's brood has been very transformational for me. It has changed how I think about organizing, but it's also been incredibly helpful for how I think about my own life and my own connections. And so, I think one of the things is that notion that there are never just two options and that you can, there, we are in a quantum universe, there have to be more than just two options. And if you can't see them, then they're probably purposely being hidden from you because they are not salient to the system. But I think the same is true really thinking about us. We often get into reactionary spaces in our own lives, in our own engagement. And so I think it becomes useful to take a step back and say, okay, I see that I'm reacting to this thing. But what do I actually want in this situation? Not what, how do I feel about what's being offered? What do I want in this space? What is, you know, concretely where I want to get? And then what are, what are the first steps towards moving towards that? You know, Adrienne always talks about having a shared vision. And then the question becomes, what, how do you take the next most elegant step? Rather than having a set strategic plan, it's more emergent as a work on emergent strategy. And so, you know, I think that that's a question to ask individually and collectively, especially in our movements and our work to continually ask what is the world we want. And it is challenging to ask that and to think about that, you know, to tie him out. Climate justice, you know, in this world to say, okay, well, it feels like we're beyond that point. So we can't get what we want. So we just have to figure out how to react and minimize what's here. But I think that it is imperative to have that shared vision and to be moving towards it. Other pieces become steps along the way. But if your goal is just minimization, that's as far as you're going to get. If your goal is, you know, a healing of the entire planet, we may not get 100% there, but we will get much further than if you're just like, how do we just stop the emerging? We want to actually begin the healing. Beautiful. Wow. Well, Eda, thank you so, so much. What a perfect way to wrap up this from what if to what next journey and it's been an honor and I wanted just if you had any, any closing words, anything left unsaid, anything to leave us with before we, before we wrap up. No, I'm just, I'm very excited to have spaces like this and I love the time travel exercise. I love anything that gets people concretely thinking about the futures we want. So I think it's tangible as we can make them. So, you know, if we're thinking about those futures, you know, what do they smell like? What do they taste like? What do they sound like? How do we make them visceral? How do we make them live in our senses? Because that's when it becomes real. Thank you. Thank you so much. You're welcome. I hope you loved that as much as I did. So before I bid you farewell from this very last episode of From What If to What Next, a few thanks. Secondly, to you for listening and to everyone who subscribed through the Patreon page, we couldn't have done this without you. And lastly, to our producer, Ben Adacot, Time Machine Repairman, Power Excellence, creator of the most gorgeous soundscape, owner of the finest Shed Studio in the Southwest. All standing host, wonderful editor and host, Ben. Thank you so much. You're most welcome. And even for Matt and the job now, that was an amazing reference. So, should be fine. Thank you for doing this job. It's been amazing to be a part of quite a hell of a project, I'd say. Thank you. Thank you so much. So, watch this space. There will be more delightful offerings along soon. But for now, so long, thanks. And as the student revolutionary is in 1968, used to put it, power to the imagination. Bye-bye. Bye.