Future Mending

We have all the tools and techniques we need to build a better world but the future still looks bleak. Millions lack basic necessities. Our society seems to be getting angrier. Our mental health is stretched thin. Our environment is being ravaged.

Cultures are built on repetition. Right now powerful people are paying big money to make us repeat hateful and destructive words and activities.

Future mending is about tuning out the toxicity and uncovering the good things going on all around us, then saying their names like a prayer in order to drown out the greed and insults of the algorithm. Cultures are built on repetition. So lets start repeating all the good things like a bucket brigade putting out a fire.

Multiple Crises need Multi-Solving

In a world with overlapping disasters, we need to focus on activities and systems that make things better in multiple areas at once.

Future mending means finding the option that is cheaper, healthier AND more sustainable.

Future mending is a local repair cafe, not next-day delivery on a new vacuum cleaner.
Future mending is a bicycle, not an $90,000 cybertruck.
Future mending is a clothing swap, not a shopping spree; a local tool inventory, not a snow-blower in every garage.
Future mending is a farmers market or community-supported agriculture, not a greedy grocery giant; a restaurant that is a neighbourhood gathering place, not a fast food franchise.

Multi-solving and ‘co-benefits’ are ideas that environmentalists will be familiar with, but they haven’t yet had much impact on our day-to-day activities.

Future mending is about bridging the gap between personal change and systemic change and welcoming the general public into a win-win-win future.

So what’s the actual plan?

THE PLAN:

1. We will map and catalogue events, organizations and businesses that are win-win and promote them in a newsletter and on social media.
2. We will host and promote events where you can meet up with other future menders and remember what it feels like to be part of a healthy and fulfilling community.
3. We will provide reminders to take care of yourself and disengage from toxic habits – like doom-scrolling and overworking yourself.
4. We will suggest simple activities that will spread the word about all the good work that is already being done. And we will practice what we preach: in addition to spreading the word about future mending, these activities will be good for you.
5. We will explore theories and examples in the newsletter podcast. The idea of future mending is based on both theory and practical examples, all of which we skipped in this brief introduction because you don’t put citations in your first hundred words.

THE LONG-TERM PLAN:

1. If we find a restaurant or shop that is excited by future mending, we might even create a community hub or hang out where people can get together, break bread and grow the movement.
2. If there is broad interest in this campaign, we’ll do some fundraising and buy ads and pay people like artists and event organizers and even potentially ourselves to do this properly.
3. The very long-term plan is to shift market share from the worst and greediest companies to non-profits, coops and small businesses that are trying to give back in multiple areas instead of just extracting.

Obviously, that’s more than my partner and I can do from the sides of our desks – so we’ll need other people to pitch in if we’re going to change the world. But many of you are already doing the work of future mending – so reach out and tell us about it.

SIGN UP FOR THE FUTURE MENDING NEWSLETTER
Ideas, organizations and future mending best practices that will work anywhere. The Toronto edition will also include Toronto events, businesses and non-profits. You don’t have to worry about us emailing you too much, because honestly, we’re probably too busy to even send this out once a month.