“What kind of ancestor do you want to be?”
— Long Now Foundation

Last night, I stood barefoot by the window, moonlight pooling softly on the floor. The world outside was still, but my mind stirred with questions, possibilities, and a quiet yearning for something deeper than the next big innovation.

We often speak of “the future” as a place we’re striving toward. But what if the future is also a mirror—not only of what we dream, but of who we dare to become?

This invitation, posed by the Long Now Foundation—the creators of 10,000-year clocks and guardians of long-term thinking—cuts through the noise:
“What kind of ancestor do you want to be?”

It’s not about legacy in a grandiose sense. It’s about responsibility, relationship, and a radical redefinition of impact. It’s about planting seeds we may never see bloom—and finding meaning in the act itself.

Thinking in Long Timeframes

In a world addicted to speed, quarterly earnings, and dopamine-fueled refresh buttons, imagining 10,000 years into the future might feel absurd. But as Stewart Brand reminds us:
“Civilization is revving itself into a pathologically short attention span.”

Long-term thinking is an act of resistance—and reverence. It helps us pause and ask: Are we building something that serves not just this moment, but future generations? For the forests yet unwalked? The grandchildren we may never meet? The stories not yet imagined?

Roman Krznaric, in The Good Ancestor, urges us to shift from short-termism to intergenerational justice—from ROI to resonance. To build not just for profit, but for posterity.

Six Ways to Think Long: Insights from The Good Ancestor

Roman Krznaric outlines six essential tools to cultivate long-term thinking:

• Deep-Time Humility: Embrace our brief moment within Earth’s vast timeline. Recognize that we are part of a story far older—and longer—than ourselves.
• Legacy Mindset: Consider how our daily decisions ripple forward. What will we leave behind—intentionally or unintentionally?
• Intergenerational Justice: Ensure the rights and needs of future generations are as present in our decisions as those of current stakeholders.
• Cathedral Thinking: Initiate ambitious projects that may not be completed in your lifetime. Think like the builders of great cathedrals who laid foundations for future hands to finish.
• Holistic Forecasting: Look at future trends not in isolation, but as interconnected ecosystems—technological, environmental, cultural, and ethical.
• Transcendent Goal: Pursue goals that go beyond the self—goals grounded in service, meaning, and stewardship of life.

Together, these practices expand our perspective and deepen our capacity to act on behalf of those we may never meet.

The Future Is There to Be Created

One of the most empowering truths we often overlook is this: the future is not something we passively await. It is something we actively shape.

Rather than seeing the future as a fixed outcome, we can embrace it as a field of possibility—one that we have the power to co-create. Every choice, conversation, design, and intention becomes a thread in the tapestry of tomorrow.

This shift from prediction to participation is at the heart of futures thinking. It is a call to agency, imagination, and collective stewardship.

The future isn’t written yet. And that is its greatest gift.

Practicing the Future Like a Muscle

Jane McGonigal, research director at the Institute for the Future, offers us a powerful tool: mental time travel. The ability to vividly imagine future scenarios is not science fiction—it’s resilience training.

“The future belongs to those who can imagine it, rehearse it, and build it.”

She warns that the most dangerous words in our collective vocabulary are “unthinkable” and “unimaginable.” If we can’t picture a future, how can we prepare for it—or shape it?

Through her future-thinking exercises, McGonigal helps us unlock our future power. Examples include:

• Visualize your ideal morning in 2034: What do you see when you wake up? What can you hear? Smell? Who’s there with you?
• Choose three climate-resilient cities you might consider moving to. What would life look like there?
• Participate in a simulation vote: Would you approve solar radiation management to fight climate change?
• Write a letter to your future self: What hopes, fears, or commitments do you want to express?

These exercises:

• • Deepen emotional connection with future goals
• • Strengthen realistic hope and cognitive flexibility
• • Shift our thinking from fear to proactive transformation
• • Cultivate agency even in systems that feel overwhelming

Future thinking becomes a workout for the imagination—and leaders who train this muscle build ethical, inclusive, and visionary futures.

Chatting with Your Future Self: MIT’s “Future You”

What if you could have a conversation with your 80-year-old self?
That question lies at the heart of Future You, a groundbreaking AI tool developed by researchers at MIT Media Lab, UCLA, Harvard, and Thailand’s Kasikorn Business-Technology Group.

The platform lets you engage in a dialogue with a chatbot version of your older self, customized with your own life data. Journalist Heidi Mitchell, in the Wall Street Journal, described how her digital elder revealed that she would write a book, retire at 65, enjoy six grandchildren, and live in the suburbs—a life quite different from her present dreams. Yet, one thread remained: her enduring passion for meaningful change.

The brilliance of Future You lies in its intimacy. By interacting with a future version of yourself, you:

• Cultivate empathy for the person you will become
• Clarify long-term aspirations
• Make more intentional choices today

This is not just an AI experiment. It is soul work—a bridge between imagination and identity. It reminds us that the future is shaped not by predictions, but by presence.

Augmenting Leadership for the Future

Bob Johansen, Distinguished Fellow at the Institute for the Future, urges leaders to embrace full-spectrum thinking—a capacity to hold complexity, avoid false binaries, and lead with clarity over certainty.

“The future will reward clarity but punish certainty.”

In his book Leaders Make the Future, 3rd editions, Johansen identifies 10 augmented leadership skills that blend human intuition with AI-era fluency. A few core ones include:

• Augmented Futureback Curiosity: Imagine the future first, then work backward to inform today’s decisions. It’s the opposite of default linear planning.
• Augmented Clarity: Communicate complex ideas with moral clarity—not oversimplification. Leaders must learn to see through chaos and articulate meaning.
• Augmented Depolarizing: Bridge divides by creating spaces of psychological safety where opposing views can coexist and evolve.
• Human Calming: Offer a grounded, composed presence amidst turbulence. A calm leader radiates trust, especially in unpredictable environments.

These aren’t simply traits—they’re trained competencies. And in a world that feels increasingly fragmented and fast, they offer a compass for navigating the unknown.

They’re not just for leading organizations—they’re for leading as the kind of humans future generations will thank.

Foresight Meets Philosophy

True foresight isn’t about making predictions.
It’s about making meaning.

It invites us to ask:
• What kind of progress is truly worth pursuing?
• How do we center the voiceless, the forgotten, and the not-yet-born?
• What values endure when technology accelerates faster than our ethics?

Thinkers across time have offered guidance:
Spinoza spoke of radical interconnectedness.
Simone de Beauvoir reminded us that freedom without responsibility is hollow.
Byung-Chul Han warns that in a culture obsessed with performance, we risk losing our depth.

Perhaps true leadership today isn’t about visibility—but about vision, rooted in wisdom.
Not louder voices, but longer echoes.

From Superintelligence to Deep Utopia

In Deep Utopia: Life and Meaning in a Solved World, philosopher Nick Bostrom explores a provocative question:
What becomes of human purpose when machines can do nearly everything better than we can?

Unlike his earlier work Superintelligence, which focused on existential risks, Deep Utopia shifts the lens toward existential renewal.
Told through a series of fictional lectures delivered by an older version of Bostrom himself, the book reflects on what it means to live a meaningful life in a post-instrumental society—one where superintelligent AI has removed most forms of labor and challenge.

His answer?
We must cultivate a rich leisure culture—not one of passive consumption, but of deeper engagement:
Art. Nature. Play. Relationships. Self-transcendence.

The book’s narrative-philosophical format is as unconventional as its inquiry. It invites us to imagine a world where meaning isn’t found in productivity, but in presence.
In this vision of the future, human flourishing is no longer defined by utility—but by the quality of attention we bring to life itself.

Strengthening Tomorrow’s Mind

If the future is a canvas, then our inner capacities are the brushstrokes that define its shape. As we deepen our long-term imagination, we must also cultivate the skills to stay centered and adaptable amidst complexity.

In their book Tomorrowmind, Kellerman and Seligman offer a powerful model for thriving in a fast-changing world—PRISM:

• Prospection – the ability to mentally time travel and imagine multiple futures, then act intentionally toward them.
• Resilience – not just bouncing back from stress, but growing through it with emotional agility and post-traumatic growth.
• Innovation – nurturing creativity and courageous problem-solving in the face of new challenges.
• Social Support – cultivating authentic relationships that act as buffers against adversity and amplifiers of purpose.
• Meaning – anchoring our actions in a clear sense of purpose, aligning daily choices with something larger than ourselves.

These five future-ready skills are not extras—they are essentials. They form the psychological foundation of human flourishing in a world shaped by exponential change.

PRISM doesn’t just help us survive. It helps us serve. It reminds us that long-term thinking must be grounded in short-term practice: how we show up in meetings, how we regulate our emotions during tension, how we reach out in kindness, how we create even in uncertainty. They echo what you may already sense:

• That imagination needs scaffolding.
• That purpose is both a compass and a muscle.
• And that the future belongs to those who train for it—with heart, with curiosity, and with others.

So as we ask What kind of ancestor do I want to be?, we might also ask:

• Am I practicing prospection today?
• Am I building resilient systems—in myself and with others?
• Am I daring to innovate, connect, and create meaning every day?

PRISM invites us to not just imagine the future, but to become the kind of person the future needs.

And maybe that’s the truest kind of foresight there is.

Designing Tomorrow from the In-Between: A Future Perspectives Invitation

Before we return to the final reflection, consider this your personal invitation:

Join the Art Exhibition: Potential of the In-Between
A space to explore liminality, uncertainty, and transformation through visual expression. Let the art open up new ways of seeing your role in shaping what comes next.

Guided Reflection: Future Perspectives
🗓 March 29 | 🕐 13:00 CET
Step into a curated reflective session that brings together voices from across disciplines to collectively imagine, share, and navigate the landscapes of our possible futures.

About Art Exhibition Potential of the InBetween.

Becoming a Good Ancestor

So I return to the question that sparked this entire reflection:
What kind of ancestor do I want to be?

Perhaps it means:
• Choosing clarity over certainty
• Asking deeper questions—not just quicker ones
• Designing systems that uplift and outlast us
• Writing letters to the future, even if no one ever reads them

Because being a good ancestor isn’t about being remembered.
It’s about living today with reverence, resilience, and radical imagination.

And maybe—just maybe—
it’s about remembering that love, not speed, is our truest compass.

“We have all the time in the world, just for love… nothing more, nothing less… only love.”
Let those words from Louis Armstrong wrap around you like moonlight.

Take a breath. Step outside the noise.
And listen with your whole self to this quiet, lasting truth:

Tonight, I’ll sit again by the window.
And perhaps, I’ll speak softly with the future version of myself.
Not for predictions—but for perspective.
Not to chase certainty—but to choose meaning.

So when the world feels loud and fast,
Sit by your window.
Listen.
Imagine.

And remember—
The future isn’t waiting.
It’s listening.

Listen to podcast discussions about a Purposeful Future

A Purposeful Future (in English):

En Meningsful Framtid (på svenska)

References

• Long Now Foundation – https://longnow.org 
• Roman Krznaric, The Good Ancestor: How to Think Long Term in a Short-Term World (2020)
• Stewart Brand – The Clock of the Long Now (2000)
• Jane McGonigal, Imaginable: How to See the Future Coming and Feel Ready for Anything—Even Things That Seem Impossible Today (2022)
• How to see the future coming – and prepare for it Tedtalk by McGonigal 
• Future You AI Tool – https://futureyou.life 
• Heidi Mitchell, “A new artificial-intelligence tool allowed me to talk to my 80-year-old self,” Wall Street Journal, Feb. 1, 2025
• Bob Johansen, Leaders Make the Future, Third Edition: Ten New Skills to Humanize Leadership Skills with Generative AI (2025)
• Institute for the Future – https://iftf.org 
• Future of Humanity Institute – https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk
• Byung-Chul Han, The Burnout Society (2015)
• Nick Bostrom, Deep Utopia: Life and Meaning in a Solved World (2024)
• Kellerman & Selig, Tomorrowsmind (2024)

Related earlier blogposts

About Novisali 

Novisali, (alias Liselotte Engstam), is besides her roles as professional board member and advisor, a multi-media artist, with a curious, explorative mind and an ambition to learn and extend art experiences to current and new audiences using both traditional and new digital mediums. More information and exhibitions can be found via Novisali.com

This blog post was is also shared at the blog of www.liselotteengstam.com, with the artist name Novisali.