We might feel the world speed up by the hour and tremble on its axis, leaving us on ever-shaky ground. Impermanence has always been the silent truth beneath our feet, yet it seems louder now.
Headlines speak of sudden storms—political tempests, trade wars without reason, and the echoes of conflicts closer to our doorsteps. We watch with worry as the world we know starts to fall apart, showing how unsure everything really is.
I can't help but think of Antonio Gramsci's asserting that "The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters." But was it ever another time than the one with the monsters?
I'm not saying this because I'm sad or hopeless. I don't believe there was a perfect time in the past that we somehow lost. I have doubts about people who loudly say, "It was better before," as if saying it makes it real.
During a meeting, our boss opened by saying that "Being is becoming," which got me thinking a lot (Thanks, Nigel). While this was to be interpreted in a business-centric way, those three words resonate even louder in a broader context.
Impermanence is not a flaw to fear; it is the very nature of existence. We cannot change it, but we can change our relationship with it. To cling is to suffer; to let go is to transcend.
When life feels messy and uncertain, maybe the most helpful thing we can do is stay flexible—learn to move with the changes, stay calm in the chaos, and understand that losing something doesn't mean we've failed. It can simply be the start of something new.
In this age of acceleration, our resilience lies in embracing the ephemeral. Let's be graceful for what once was and rejoice for what will be, and work tirelessly to be the architects of those futures we want to live in.
This is where design meets Dasein—the German word used by Heidegger to describe human existence, or more precisely, our being-in-the-world. Design, in its truest form, is not just about creating things.
It's about listening deeply to what the world needs, and shaping forms, systems, and stories that help us live more truthfully within it. In this way, design is not decoration. It is care. It is presence. It is an answer to the call of existence.
Our role as designers, as makers of things, is to help translate the invisible into the visible, the possible into the actual. In a constantly changing world, design is not just what we make. It's also how we choose to be. It's what we allow and what we prevent.
This blog is about telling a story in the making on the world we would like to pass on to our children. In that world, the permanence is the willingness and ability to build and rebuild, and the acceptance of the impermance of what we have built.
In her book Call Us What We Carry, Amanda Gorman forges a hopeful vision of a shared future out of the past and present wreckage. The poet heals the wounds of the past and builds a lighthouse to guide the path of the future.
Let's carry resilience, joy, gratitude, the tools, knowledge, and the willingness to build. If we were to be called by what we carry, then let us be called hope, care, and quiet strength. Let's be Wor(l)d Builders.
To desirable futures,
Thomas