Asking Why

Ever since I was little I asked 'why?' (a lot). And I never really stopped. Rather, I created a career out of it, as a qualitative researcher (why do people do what they do?). Later learning to add 'what if?', when I moved into human-centered design and innovation (how can we make things better?).

It was satisfying to help design products and services to improve people's lives, but about five years ago I started to wonder: how can we apply these methods to the real, big, complex problems of our time? How do we design for system change?

I created a 'learning sabbatical' and studied systems thinking, societal transitions and yoga philosophy. And it set my question-asking heart on fire:

How do we live in a time, where our way of living threatens our very existence? Where everything we built and believed in seems to crumble before our very eyes?

Where we need radical change but are numb, exhausted and distracted? Where we are paralysed maybe even by shame for not doing more*?

I (re)connected with my background in social sciences and started to research and write about what this transition means for me, and for us as a culture. And I decided to now start sharing some of these reflections.

As I have always asked questions, connected the dots and shaped insights to trigger creativity and imagination, I figured that maybe also now this is how I can help in some way.

Even if it is only to make us realise we are not alone. In the question asking, the not knowing.

And maybe daring to be in the not knowing together, can even be a little thread we can pull on, one tiny starting point for change.

So here we are. This is Uncivilize.

* in the Global North