Quid Tum - What next? is a declaration of our faith in the future, in the power of human ingenuity. It encompasses passion, curiosity, exploration, truth seeking. As readers will know, this blog is about the power of creativity and innovation when applied to our destiny's challenge - a good life for everyone.
Truth seekers and pursuers of justice don't stand still. They, at minimum, are in constant dialogue with themselves. Making the elusive visible may get tested and refined in their conversations but I suspect more often in their actions. By the time they get around to writing about it, they are on to the next pursuit. To peek inside the souls of explorers I admire I have assembled another set of essays fashioned after last year's popular Becoming Visible in 2011 collection.
This year my question is: What are you skating towards in 2012?
I invited people I had profiled or referenced in my blogs throughout 2011 to write about an idea, concept, or phenomenon that is capturing their attention. I was particularly interested in what was on their horizon, not yet clear, still amorphous.
Their responses are deeply personal yet their canvas is civilization. If a theme emerged this year it was that of the citizen - citizen as being, citizen as doing. Being - anchored in the values of the heart, mystery, fallibility, joy, delicious ambiguity, empathy, love. Doing - the messy, unglamorous, tough work of constructive destruction, cooperating with opponents and strangers, intervening to stop atrocities...
If these essays are any indication we may be witnessing a reclamation of our narrative as citizen fused from personal and shared values, at the intersection of voice and agency and forged out of necessity and commonality.
I will release the first essay New Year's Day, January 1st 2012. You can access them here or in the What are you Skating Towards category to the right of your screen. The full collection will be published shortly.
To whet your appetite here is a list of this year's contributors.
Adam Kahane, Alex Fox, Allyson Hewitt, Arthur Wood, Brad Johnston, Cairine Macdonald, Caroline Casey, Colleen McCormick, Cormac Russell, David Roche, Donna Thomson, Faye Porter, Gordon Atherley, Gordon Hogg, Gord Tulloch, Gregor Wolbring, Ian Curtin, Jacques Dufresne, Jacques Pelletier, Jim Fletcher, Jim Schwier, Joe Coughlin, John McKnight, John Mighton, John Stapleton, Kathy Bromley, Linda Couture, Linda Perry, Lindsay Cant, Maggie Vilvang, Marcel Lauzière, Mark Anielski, Mark Kingwell, Molly Harrington, Patrick O'Neil, Paul Born, Paul Pholeros, Peter Block, Peter Deitz, Richard Bridge, Richard Faucher, Richard Steckel, Sam Sullivan, Sean Moore, Shari Graydon, Shawn Smith, Sherri Torjman, Stefan Lorimer, Stephen Owen, Steve Sunderland, Ted Jackson, Ted Kuntz, Vickie Cammack and a few more...
May 2012 bring you, dear reader, a long river to skate away on.
