So - you don’t like the election of Trump as a president? You weren’t too happy about Brexit? You keep on wondering what’s going on with this world?
Well, I’ve got something to share with you, my generation, that may seem a little blunt. We all need to start doing more. We need to engage in more conversations with *everyone* around us. We need to campaign, we need to learn, we need to connect, we need to fight. We need to start waking up the fire in our bellies, and maintain that fire and fight for our future rather than continue to be spectators at a show that we don’t quite like the script for.
We need to filter out all the brainwash-y propaganda that’s infecting our newsfeeds, and start connecting with real, intelligent, inspiring people that we can learn from. Every. Single. Day.
The Folkestone Book Festival started this week. I spent 10 hours yesterday attending the most amazing talks. Artificial Intelligence by Margaret Boden. Learning how AI is more than just creating tech-y tools, and how it helps us understand how human minds work.
Farmageddon by Philip Lymbery. Learning about the global farming system and how it needs to change. The craziness of our food production levels - 16 billion people could be fed - but our waste is so phenomenal that we don’t even end up feeding a quarter of that.
Sir Martin Rees - The Long View. Emeritus professor at Cambridge. Wow! Cosmology and Astrophysics. There is no planet B, we must solve the world’s problems down here. David Crystal - the gift of the gab. Absolutely sublime performance, one of the best talks I’ve ever heard in my life. Attention, eloquence, involvement, artistry and understanding. Absolutely stopped me in my tracks.
And finally, a talk on “What Next?” post-Brexit and Trump with Mary Ann Sieghart, Robin Lustig and Guy Fraser-Sampson. I got to ask what can my generation do to try and navigate this mess that we see around us. I got to lean, and engage and write my thoughts down, and make plans.
And you know what the funny thing is? Before the 2015 (!!!!) General Election I was asked who I would vote for, if I could vote in the UK. I replied at the time that I was too uninformed to make a decision. That I didn’t know enough about British politics for me to make a decision.
I was drifting. I was sooooo distracted. By exactly all the other stuff that blocks our newsfeeds every day. And now, I’ve only *just* started to wake up. Only just. But yesterday, I was able to keep up with everything that was said in those sessions.
And you know what? These genius people, these amazingly accomplished people have come to Folkestone. To Folkestone, peeps. They’re miles away from your home. That’s why Roger de Haan, is, in my opinion, a saint. He is essentially lifting a whole community up through the power of conversation, and engaging and learning and exploring. And we don’t always agree. In fact, we disagree a lot of the times. But we have a conversation about it. And that is how CHANGE HAPPENS.
So I cordially invite you to the Folkestone Book Festival for the next 7 days. Go. Learn. Discover. Engage.
This is me, last night, with the collection of books I bought during day 1. I'm so excited to learn more.
Lots of love to the world, Crista
