The future, still unknown, but much faster

Not long after, in ’97, exhausted from proselytising and evangelising a whole new world, I went to work at Positive News – the newspaper that sought to share only good news and ideas. As Assistant Editor, I reported on all manner of world-improving and environmentally-respectful projects, again ready for a paradigm shift, international in scale and impact.

That wasn’t an all-together, positive experience, but I did start The International Institute of Joy along the way, and penned a small, self-help book and guide called Come Back to Life, in my earnest attempts to support the world’s enlightenment.

Fast forward, and still waiting for change in 2010, I was moved to create an internet radio show – The Barefoot Broadcast – featuring a familiar array of subjects and speakers, all ready, like me, for a shift.

Two years later, and by then in a romantic partnership with an astrologer, 2012 was supposed to be the road that might have risen to meet the feet of those of us with our head in the clouds, still hoping for a hike in human consciousness, supposedly foretold by the Mayans. Squid or squib (I think the latter), it too proved damp, and dreams of an evolutionary leap looked unrealised.

As it turned out, it was going to be a less spiritual, and more medicinal intervention that would give humanity the shake-down some of us had been anticipating. Just as Saint Augustine pleaded “Give me chastity and continence, but not yet”, we hopeful hippies might well have cried: “Lord, give us a different world … but not like this!”

That said, a new normal is certainly upon us, and the fear and anxiety fostered (and might I say encouraged) by the pandemic response is, for many, just a way of life now, where a virus has morphed into a new, different terror every other day.

So here we are, halfway into 2026, and still my soul yearns for a new way of being for humans that will give way, or even demand in desperation, new approaches to doing all the old, exhausted ways of the world that we all know are failing. Whether we look at government, economics, health or education, we must surely feel uneasy that a mere change of candidates and leaders at the ‘top’ will bring about anything of lasting use.

In the 70s, Gaye asked what was going on; Dylan told us that the answer was blowing in the wind, and the Beatles said all we needed was love. Decades later, the soul of their messages still resonate, but the society they were addressing has not moved its needle in the direction that I imagine they were all hoping for.

So, where does all that leave us? Am I still hopeful? And with AI breathing down our necks in this age of the most reckless and profligate politics, what’s the prognosis for viable alternatives or the promises of the Aquarian age that were to bring “harmony and understanding, sympathy and trust, abounding”?

One thing I am sure of, and I want you to know that I am still open to more heaven on earth, is what my old school mate shared with me recently, over the phone from Australia on one of our long and long-overdue bloke chats, on the state of the world.

“For the first time in our living memory, we don’t know what life will look like in five years’ time,” he said to me, his insight arresting me.

Yes, whilst we have the most fertile soils for the growth of something new, no one seems to have a single real idea about what to do, except to have a different version of the very same nonsense that got us into, and keeps us, in this mess.

Honestly however, looking back, the truth is that we never knew what was really going to happen, it’s just that we don’t know what is going to happen, faster, and in a way that is less escapable – either through collective fantasy or wholesale distraction.

What to do then with this predicament? Where, of course, hope abides, and is still the last thing in the Pandora’s Box that is our daily lives.

Without Marvin or the Mayans to consult, and McCartney probably tired of talking about the practical limitations of ‘Imagine’, it seems only right to ask, somewhat gingerly, the counsel, and for some the great saviour, of the moment – artificial intelligence. So I did.

Coldly cogitating upon my human hopes and somewhat weary track record, Musk’s Grok told me: “The next five years are poised to be a period of profound but uneven transformation, where rapid AI progress, renewable energy dominance and the scaling of regenerative agriculture offer practical pathways toward greater abundance, resilience, and ecological restoration.”

“Work norms may shift further toward flexibility and well-being, as four-day week evidence spreads,” it adds, “while AI accelerates scientific discovery in health, climate, and complex systems – acting as a co-scientist rather than mere tool.”

“Amid geopolitical volatility, economic strains, and lingering anxiety from recent disruptions, old institutional models in governance, health, and education will face deepening pressure, yet these regenerative, human-centered, and tech-augmented alternatives provide fertile ground for viable new ways of operating – less a sudden harmonious leap than a pragmatic evolution. A different world remains possible – not despite the uncertainty, but because of the creative responses it is eliciting.”

And Google’s Gemini is equally encouraging: “While the grand, top-down global transformation anticipated since the 1990s never materialized, the true paradigm shift is quietly unfolding from the ground up in 2026,” it begins.

“Instead of waiting for a political or cosmic intervention to fix exhausted systems, a decentralized ‘new world’ is actively emerging through tangible, grassroots choices: the rise of regenerative agriculture (thriving right under your feet in Portugal), the adoption of circular and Donut economics, a reclamation of authentic human connection as an antidote to AI, and the building of parallel community structures in education and health.”

“Ultimately, the profound uncertainty of what life will look like in five years is not a failure of the dream, but a fertile, blank canvas – proving that the Age of Aquarius isn’t a global event we wait for, but a localized, DIY project we are already building.”

OK. I’m in. Still hopeful. And looking up “regenerative agriculture”, as I put down my metaphorical pen for this week.

Read Carl Munson’s previous article: Portugal, what are you like?