DailyPost 2626
DISENGAGED WITH THE FUTURE
If you do a survey to find out on clear cut research parameters as to how many of us or what percentage of us are engaged with the future, it is bound to throw up numbers, which are bound to startle us. The biggest question what would hit us on face is that if we are disengaged with the future, what is the worth of our engagement with the present. Is our existence not an iterative one? Can we keeping imagining of a dream future without even able to understand / know the basic contours of it, leave aside imagining to work for it. If you don’t plan your finances, will you ever be able to find financial comfort in life?
The straight and simple answer is no. Engaging for the future is a long term exercise and needs a very different type of a mindset, even to be mentally prepared for it at the first level. To engage with the future we need to know where we come from, what trajectory we have taken to reach the current position and what have we gained in the process. This would help you understand the engagement with time of an individual, organisation, institution, enterprise or even the whole nation. Most people would find this to be abstract, whereas in reality, it would have been tangible all the way.
The fact of the matter is that the connect between present and the future is the Gordian knot which leaders of all types; political, social, economic and tech have been trying to decipher for a long time. Rarest of the rare are able to understand, how to unknot even theoretically. Coming up with a tangible and doable plan to get engaged with the future in terms of clear cut goals, targets and deliverables with a prescribed timeline and quality assurance, seems to be totally unheard of in this country. You need to have the milestones and methodologies to achieve it. This capability you might develop if you have been a long time practitioner, do in depth professional reading and have capability to assimilate
The winds of change are totally sweeping the world with a pace never ever experienced in human history. What will happen tomorrow is unknown, if we talk in a figurative manner. Our disengagement with the future of democracy and the welfare state has brought us where we are? Politics of fire fighting cannot be termed as engaging with the democratic future of the nation. Quality of education has become a big question mark? Were we conscious about the fact that we were engaging only with the horizontal extension of education, where quality and its utility was never thought of. Its direct connection with growth, nation building and self-reliance was never engaged upon. Our cheap labour nature of engagement in the IT industry never allowed us to move in the direction of becoming a tech superpower. We have faltered as differential levels because of not engaging with the future. The Artificial Intelligence, AI, revolution is providing one last chance to engage with the future, own it or get lost forever.
A DISENGAGED FUTURE IS A CONGENITALLY FAILED FUTURE.
Sanjay Sahay
Have a nice evening.