Future Serious Resources for July 20, 02025
AI as a Reminder ⊗ Action as Therapy ⊗ Future of Health
Hey,
In case you missed it last week, I’m excited to announce that registration is now open for the third cohort of the Confronting Education Workshop, which will start on September 16! If you’re looking for a community to help process the unraveling that’s happening right now and what it means for the future of schooling and education, I hope you’ll consider joining us.
Here’s one take from a participant in Cohort 1:
“There's a lot to consider in order to give the next generations the tools to construct the future they deserve. And there's a lot to unpack as the traditional "status quo" works to prepare them for a future that does not exist. The ideas, curated concepts and discussions in these workshops will help you sit with the reality and push your thinking and practice into the realm of what "can be." ~Billy Kirby, Des Moines, IA
Tiered pricing to fit every budget.
Over 100 alumni to share the journey with.
A brave and safe space to work through ideas and emotions.
Early bird pricing through August 15.
Get all the details and register here. Let me know if you have any questions.
Still struggling with my provocations…apologies.
As always, thanks for reading. As a reminder, all posts here are free, but if you want to show your support for my work in general, a paid subscription is always an option. Remember: I’m donating all proceeds from paid subscriptions to my local food pantry at the end of the year (now at $1,108.50!)
With any luck, I’ll see you Wednesday with Provocation #24.
With gratitude,
~Will
AI is a Reminder
I really appreciate this take on some of the subtler impacts of AI by Pia Luaritzen in Forbes. She argues that AI “reconnects us with our questioning nature,” and that fact might be a very good thing. Especially in the sense that it is challenging our own sense of control as human beings:
“The fact that we are asking questions that we have neglected to ask for millennia not only tells us something important about AI. It also tells us something important about ourselves. From stone axes to engines to social media, the essence of technology has made us think of our surroundings as something we can design and decide how to be. But AI is different. AI doesn’t make us think we’re in control. On the contrary, AI is the first technology in human history that makes it clear that we are not in control.
AI reminds us that it’s not just nature outside us that has limitations. It’s also nature inside us. It reminds us of our limitations in time and space. And that our natural limitations are not just physical, but also social and cognitive.
AI brings us face to face with our ignorance and challenges us to ask who we are and what we want to do when we are not the ones in control: Do we insist on innovating or regulating ourselves back into control? Or do we finally recognize that we never were and never will be in control? Because we are part of nature, not above or beyond it.”
It may seem ironic that we need to be reminded that we are a part of nature. But that is where we are at right now. We ignore our connection, and in doing so, amplify the separability that is at the root of our issues. So, yeah…“Who are we when we are not in control?” is a really important question.
Taking Action as Therapy
As I remind the people in my workshops on a regular basis, this is a hard moment. It’s ok to feel anxious and sad and a whole host of other emotions. But as this piece by Ecotherapist Louise Taylor suggests, it’s not enough to just acknowledge our stress; we need to take actions in the world to better cope with it.
Ecotherapy helps people reconnect with the natural world as a way to support mental and emotional wellbeing. It might involve walking in green spaces, mindfulness practices in nature, working with natural materials, or nature-based rituals.
Whether it’s planting a garden, sitting under a tree, or engaging in conservation efforts, ecotherapy helps people feel more grounded, more connected and more resilient both emotionally and spiritually.
In my practice, I’ve noticed that younger people are more likely to experience climate anxiety, while older generations tend to experience ecological grief. The difference is subtle but important. Anxiety often relates to what lies ahead and a sense of powerlessness. Grief is about what has already been lost.
This emotional divide makes sense when we consider what has happened to the natural world over recent decades. Older adults have witnessed the loss of species, habitats and biodiversity in real time. Many have rich memories and relationships with landscapes that no longer exist as they once did. Meanwhile, younger generations face the terrifying uncertainty of a rapidly changing climate and an increasingly unstable future.
All the more reason to get kids outside the classroom and actually doing things in the community to contribute to bettering the world.
The Future of Health
I’ve been thinking for quite some time that much of the increase in mental and physical health issues we’ve been experiencing around the world stems from the health issues that the planet itself is experiencing. So it’s not surprising to find this long and fascinating read from a collection of authors over at Noema that does a deep dive into the “future of health on a damaged planet.”
Half a century later, in most of the world, humanity’s prevailing conception of health remains sadly constrained to a vision of the individual body. We invest immense intellectual and financial capital in charting the intricate pathways of pathogens, mapping the probabilistic landscapes of genetic predispositions and analyzing the consequences of lifestyle choices. The domain of pathogenesis has yielded undeniable triumphs but still operates with an almost willful blindness to the larger drama unfolding around us.
As planetary systems buckle under the cumulative weight of industrial modernity, the pathogenic focus reveals itself as insufficient, a form of myopia in an age demanding panoramic vision. The cascading crises of the Anthropocene aren’t merely inconvenient background noise — they are becoming the foundational context that dictates the terms of human existence and demands a radical rethinking of well-being itself.
Given the predicament of the Anthropocene — of global pandemics, industrial pollution, cascading biodiversity losses and the climate crisis — Antonovsky’s concept of salutogenesis has an augmented relevance. What if the most salient factors shaping health today lie not within the atomized individual or even their immediate social milieu, but in the fractured, volatile relationship between our species and the Earth system itself?
If educators and communities don’t start acknowledging our connection to the Earth in a physical, spiritual, and mental health sense, we will be dealing with increasing breakdown in our personal ability to navigate what’s already here and what’s coming, and do a disservice to the kids who will follow us.
Quoteables
"I lament my own immersion in an economy that grinds what is beautiful and unique into dollars, converts gifts and commodities in a currency that enables us to purchase things we don't really need while destroying what we do." ~Robin Wall Kimmerer
"In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks." - John Muir
"To leave the world better than you found it, sometimes you have to pick up other people's trash." - Bill Nye
Thoughts / Reflections / Questions / Shorts
Why the World Needs Renewable Food - Interesting.
A “Localism” Manifesto - Unique vision.
Thinking: What would it mean for schools to be in “right relationship” with the world?
As always, let me know what you’d like to see more (or less) of in these newsletters. I’m always open to learning and evolving in ways that help you make better sense of this interesting moment.
With gratitude,
~Will