Emancipation from the fear that I'm not enough. From the labels and roles designed to keep me small.

The more I travel through life, the more I see the opportunities. The ones I missed because I hesitated. The ones I could still take, if I dared. I know most of this work is mine to do.

I sometimes need a little help to feel enough. This is pushing me to learn more, try new things, master new skills, and create new tools.

I don't know how healthy that is, really, but I live with this voice urging me to have a backup plan. Always.

What's next? What's my move if things go south? What job could I do? What company could I start? Or join? How to burn toxic ones to the ground?

I don't have a clue, most of the time. But I live in a state of hyperawareness, the way people do when they've been ambushed by life once too often.

In that context, I see the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) as a beacon of hope. Use it right, and suddenly, the walls feel a little lower. The locks a little easier to pick.

I could not think of anything more suited to my anxiety and insecurities. I strongly believe my best asset is that, given enough time and trust, I can learn my way out of almost anything.

I have this will, this force. And now, I have this tool to fast-track.

But.

Of course, there is a but. There is always one.

Saying that the immensity of the resources needed to train all those models is a challenge. That's an understatement. It's a one-way ticket to a world on fire.

We are sold a world free of the suffering of labour. What we're getting is a world with fewer jobs, more slop, and the same old greed. Just automated.

AI is not stealing jobs. The people who treat labour as disposable are. They don’t know they are shooting themselves in the foot. They don't care who else they take down with them

How long before I'm on the line? Do I wait for the axe to fall? Or do I grab the wheel?

How much can I learn before the floor drops out? Could I build tools that actually serve me. Not just as a safety net, but as a trampoline? Could it also serve as plan B should the room left for human professionals shrink to nothing?

In that sense, you can feel the hiatus. On one hand, AI is a liberating force for individuals. On the other hand, it is this dooming one testing as rarely before the planetary limits.

This is yet another example of the opposition between the granular individual gesture that can be made by the willing and the collective framework that should be put in place to ensure we all stay within the average rise in temperature, allowing the planet's habitability.

There is social pressure to adopt the former, and we have yet to see anything move on the latter.

Here's the thing about building algorithms of escape: They require raw material.

My "skills" are trained on datasets scraped from underpaid workers.

My "efficiency" runs on servers cooled by melting ice caps. Even my backup plans have a carbon footprint.

I tell myself I'm just one person. What's one more script in the noise? But that's the lie we've been sold: that individual action is either powerless or sufficient. The truth is in the tension. The systems that trained these models also trained us. To optimise, to extract, to call it "innovation" when it's just kicking the can down a crumbling road.

I don't know if my tools will save me. But I know this:

The same systems that trained these models on our collective exhaustion also trained us to adapt when the floor gives way, to resist when the defaults are toxic, to find the cracks in the wall and pry them open with our bare hands.

Maybe that's the real skill. Not prompt engineering, not growth hacking, but learning to live, and build, in the rupture.

So I'll keep building.

But not for the myth of self-sufficiency, or the delusion of a solo escape. I'll build for the people who've been here before me, who left handholds in the dark. I'll build for the ones coming after, who'll need those cracks to widen into doors.

The algorithms of escape won't free us. But the right ones might buy us time. To organise, to grieve, to imagine a future less lonely than a backup plan

So what's a builder to do?

Keep building, but differently.

With a moral compass, yes. With a spine. But also with this:

The stubborn belief that the cracks we make today become the doors of tomorrow.

Thomas di Luccio writes about sustainable, desirable, and resilient futures.

© Thomas di Luccio | All rights reserved.

Read more at thomas.diluccio.fr.

First, they came for the trans kids and migrants. We called it "politics".

Then they came for words, books, and facts. We called it "controversy".

Now they're coming for the vote. And we're still calling it "polarizing".

Stop calling it anything.

Call it arson.

They told us democracy dies in darkness. But darkness is just the absence of light. And we are the ones who forgot to carry the flame.

I grew up in a world where politics was a spectrum, not a knife fight. There was one rule, unspoken but iron: No torches.

Not in the Parliament. Not at the hospitals. Not at the libraries.

We argued over taxes, healthcare, and the pace of progress. But we did not argue over whether democracy was worth keeping.

Now the torches are lit.

And the people holding them? They're not outsiders. They're our neighbours. Our representatives. Our families.

This old reality is ash now. In its place, I see a new divide: Builders and Predators.

The Predators are easy to spot.

They wear their cruelty like a crown. They call dissent treason, call kindness weakness, call facts "fake" until the lie feels safer than the truth.

They are the men (and it's almost always men) who grin as they sign laws to erase trans kids, who cheer as libraries burn, who send migrants into the sea and call it "deterrence."

They are not hiding. They want you to see.

They are not strong. They are starving. Starving for your fear, your hesitation, your polite refusal to name them for what they are.

The Builders? We're harder to recognize.

We're the ones they count on to look away.

We're the teachers buying supplies for empty classrooms.

We're the nurses working double shifts in underfunded hospitals.

We're the coders building apps to track outlaw police brutality.

We're the grandmothers standing between fascists and their neighbours.

We're the kids filming brutality with our phones, because we know the Predators only fear two things: witnesses and consequences.

We are not the minority.

We are the silent majority.

And silence is a choice we're done making.

Here is what the Predators fear: We outnumber them.

Here is what they hope: That we won't notice.

Notice this:

When they ban a book, we will print a thousand.

When they jail a journalist, we will become the press.

Builders don't wait for permission.

We don't ask if we'll win.

We ask: What can I carry?

This is not a metaphor.

This is a toolbox.

Pick up a tool.

Build!

The night is long. But we outnumber the dark.

Thomas di Luccio writes about sustainable, desirable, and resilient futures.

© Thomas di Luccio | All rights reserved.

Read more at thomas.diluccio.fr.

Words leave the mouth, the page, the screen.

And vanish.

Still, you speak.

Not because someone is listening

But because something in you insists.

In a previous life, I helped others find theirs.

For years, I designed blogs for elected officials, candidates, and political groups. It started with layouts and design choices.

It drifted, for some, toward ghostwriting, speechwriting, shaping ideas so they could stand upright in public.

Only recently did I realize I was doing more.

For many, blogging was a chore: something you did a few months before an election, then quietly delegated, if elected, to a junior staffer.

A box to tick.

A channel to fill.

Soulless marketing.

But some took it seriously. Very seriously.

And without exception, they did better.

As candidates.

As officials.

As humans in the office.

For them, writing was not marketing.

It was a relationship.

A slow, ongoing conversation with the people they represented. A way to clarify positions, test ideas, and document thinking while it was still in motion.

Not a monologue, but an act of accountability.

One of them was Pierre-Yves Le Borgn'.

I helped him launch his blog while he was campaigning to become a Member of Parliament. He is still blogging to this day.

I was genuinely sad when he lost his seat.

We didn't always agree, but I deeply respected his values, the coherence of his thinking and the firmness of his moral ground.

He was the kind of official who refused shortcuts for cheap political gains. Someone who treated institutions and the constitution not as tools, but as the highest responsibilities.

We need more of that kind these days. I would happily join his team should he decide to run back for office.

There's that old saying: the shoemaker's children go barefoot.

I now blog barely at all, while regularly complaining about my lack of clarity.

About what I want to build next.

About where I'm headed.

The irony is not subtle.

So here's the thought that's been circling me for weeks: What if I become again the wor(l)dsmith I once was again?

So this is me, starting again.

Writing without a map.

Not to explain myself, but to think in public.

To shape ideas while they are still fragile.

To leave traces.

And, if a voice still exists,

it will emerge on the page;

Quietly enough for me to follow.

Thomas di Luccio writes about sustainable, desirable, and resilient futures.

© Thomas di Luccio | All rights reserved.

Read more at thomas.diluccio.fr.

Not in a grand, historical sense, but in the tender traces left behind. In the choices made easier for someone else. In the courage to imagine a different kind of life. This is not just about physical legacy. It's about philosophical intention.

Today, I work at the intersection of product, growth, and storytelling. I build. I shape. I try to guide. I hope I'm helpful to others. But I've come to see these as tools, not destinations. What matters is what those tools enable.

What is my craft, my vocation—the one that matters beyond titles and companies—is helping others craft their own paths forward. Especially now, as we teeter on the shaky edge of a post-carbon world, resilience and clarity aren't luxuries. They're necessities.

The problem is not one of technology. It's a crisis of overwhelm. We are flooded with complexity, noise, and options that often serve no real purpose. Some hatemongers are taking advantage of the situation by adding more noise with a constant flow of made-up controversies. They manufacture urgency, pushing people to take radical stances on issues that barely existed a few weeks before.

Often, they are the ones who first twisted language, distorted facts, censored vocabulary, and turned to symbolic violence—burning books, discrediting schools, universities, journalism, and every institution that nurtures independent thought and critical minds.

It is harder than ever to choose, trust, and orient ourselves. We mistake abundance for progress, speed for wisdom, and in this fog, many feel paralyzed, unable to move toward the future they long for.

This paralysis can be silent and personal. It seeps into our mornings, our doubts, our quiet moments of wondering if this is all there is. It feeds on fear—of missing out, of getting it wrong, of not being enough. I've lived with that fear, too—the fear that perhaps I was just contributing to the noise, that my building was not helping, that my work was not healing.

And yet, there came a shift, subtle but steady. I began to ask better questions—not "What should we build?" but "What future does this enable?" I blended my product mindset with storytelling and a hands-on maker's sensibility.

I stripped things back to their essence. I found joy in clarity, frugality, and what endures. And I saw that this, too, was a form of service: to help others navigate, decide, and dream—not by handing them a map, but by helping them trust their own compass so they could draw their own.

Now, I stand in a new kind of purpose. I want to help others build desirable futures. I do it by transforming complexity into clarity, using stories, systems, and soul.

I believe beauty matters. I believe design is a form of care. I believe frugality can be freedom. And I believe we all carry the power to make choices today that ripple toward tomorrow. My work is to light the way, quietly.

And maybe, one day, when I am gone, someone will remember not what I built, but how I made them feel: capable, curious, clear. That's the light we carry. And I hope to pass it on to my son, and maybe others, so they can light their ways.

To desirable futures,

Thomas

Thomas di Luccio writes about sustainable, desirable, and resilient futures.

© Thomas di Luccio | All rights reserved.

Read more at thomas.diluccio.fr.

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

Thomas di Luccio writes about sustainable, desirable, and resilient futures.

© Thomas di Luccio | All rights reserved.

Read more at thomas.diluccio.fr.

This is the first post I write on my new blog. My old WordPress setup was always running, always there consuming so much resources, just in case. It was like feeding a machine that never slept, even though my needs were simple—a place to share words, stories, and a bit of myself. And I write once in a blue moon.

Then, I stepped back and realized that each extra feature was another knot tied around my creativity. I traded the constant hum of a giant website for the calm of a static approach. Jigsaw, Laravel, Docker. Yes, they sound technical, but they feel lighter. They only run when I need them.

My posts are stored in Markdown, and the blog is fully static. An integration links the repository and the hosted app. One GIT push, and the static site rebuilds itself like a gentle wave returning to shore.

The resource allocation during build being differentiated from the one allocated for serving the app , each part of the app lifecycle can have what it needs, no more, no less. I'm not waisting any resources.

Efforless. Simple. Minimalist.

At first, I worried I was simply piling on more complexity. But the more I learn, the less waste I create. It's like a balancing act: more knowledge, fewer burdens. I'm still far from pure low-tech, yet there is a quiet beauty in this new path.

The site is smaller, faster, and closer to my hope for less. It is using the smallest resources I can possibly allocate. I can almost feel the peaceful silence in the moments when I'm not writing, not coding, not tinkering with an admin panel.

Is this the way forward? I can't be sure. But it's a thoughtful step.

A reflection on how the right tools can help us live with a little less noise. Let there be a bit of stillness in our ever-churning world. In that stillness, maybe we'll finally hear our voices more clearly.

This step required a bit of effort. I learned new things to build myself the tool I needed to shape a lighter and brighter world.

To desirable futures,

Thomas

Thomas di Luccio writes about sustainable, desirable, and resilient futures.

© Thomas di Luccio | All rights reserved.

Read more at thomas.diluccio.fr.

I have had a great chance to constantly learn new skills and knowledge. This is one of the key factors in all the professional moves I have made. I remember having shared that with a recruiter, who seemed slightly unpleased. I quickly found out why. That company was pushing people to comply with strict, predefined parameters. There was no room for personal growth. You have to fit in a box and never leave. I left in a few months and learned to be way more selective.

That's also a massive trigger for when to leave a job. When you're done learning, or you are refused the training that could help you grow, or worse, help you do the job you. There is no time to lose; you must be ready to move on. What's next?

That's also the argument of "Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away" by Annie Duke. People tend to leave way too late and lose time. We have seen so many great athletes or performers who tried to constantly push their careers further, up to the point where they left the spotlight diminished and a mere shadow of what they once were.

It's the same in a career. People tend to stick too long, even when all opportunity windows are closed, simply because they are reluctant to go through the burden of job hunting or because they keep believing the promises that things will finally get better soon in a timeframe that keeps slipping.

I'm not saying I haven't been in a similar situation. Yet, I'll always try to overcome my circumstances to achieve personal growth, even in the slightest way.

Roughly five years ago, I envisioned moving to an international career. I was working for a French ticketing company. It was the kindest and safest work environment I have ever been in.

When I joined, I was already on my journey towards Product. They were pretty engineering-driven and demanding. I had to pass a tricky challenge that only a few people finished. It allowed me to secure a first transition from design to engineering. The next hops should (or could) be advocacy -> advocacy management -> product leadership.

As nice as this experience was, there was no room for me to grow towards Product. The company was then too small. The seat was already filled. It was time for me to pack my things.

I knew my English level would be a blocker or a pass to an international company, so I took an English lesson with a private teacher. I delve even more into the English language and storytelling, trying to understand the language, its dynamics, rhythm, and mechanics. I still have so much to learn.

One thing led to another, and I became a Developer Advocate for Blackfire, a product of which I'm still the voice today. I'm convinced this weekly one-hour chat with this great teacher enabled my career move. It was only one hour every week, and the love of reading books in their original voice made it possible.

While I'm investing more largely in learning Product Marketing, Activation, and Growth, I'm still about the little things. I subscribe to the New York Times. This helps me practice my English and better understand the country a big chunk of my colleagues live in. I very recently started playing their famous puzzles (Wordle, Spelling Bee). They are brain teasers that help me take a break while increasing my vocabulary.

Learning is always possible in the smallest of things or at scale. There is always room for personal growth, even when the day-to-day crushes you. One small step at a time, and you'll build a better future for yourself.

To desirable futures,

Thomas

Thomas di Luccio writes about sustainable, desirable, and resilient futures.

© Thomas di Luccio | All rights reserved.

Read more at thomas.diluccio.fr.

A few years ago, I felt the need for a blog. I used to blog heavily over a decade ago, when I was a freelance designer and copywriter.

But I had to quit everything abruptly while I was battling some disease for a couple of years. All that work disappeared, but I didn't care that much as, somehow, I was given the chance of a new beginning.

I continued my professional career as an employee and not an entrepreneur anymore. The need to hear my voice was less critical and more of a quiet hobby.

I did what most of us do in such situations. I went for WordPress, a not-too-crappy theme for which I might have even paid a few bucks, and cheap hosting. The recommended way to fetch WordPress is to download a zip file (scream), tweak it locally if you can, and then upload it to a server using FTP (more scream). You could use sFTP if you wish to make things less bad (still screaming).

This sounds like something that could happen in the age of the digital cave people. But it was not so long ago, and I fear it might still be widely happening in that community. Using git and composer is still heavily in the minority, and you could do it only thanks to a subpart of that community pushing hard to move forward.

This illustrates a more significant problem. The choices we make, or do not make, open some futures and close others. The obvious choice was to go for WordPress, the leading blogging solution.

Due to the greedy nature of that CMS, I ended up needing more hosting than I would need. But I told myself this larger-than-needed traditional hosting would let me host other side projects, which was as true as false. I certainly still host a fleet of dead projects.

It also led to many issues with the clumsy upgrade and backup processes. This obvious no-brainer five-minute decision ultimately led to a significant investment of time throughout the years, trouble, and even more money than this simple hobby should have required.

I should have been focusing on the stories I would have wanted to share. Meanwhile, the choices of tools for the blogging platform and the hosting solution drove my energy and attention elsewhere. They should have liberated me, freed me some well-needed time, and opened me more opportunities rather than closing many.

So, what should be done? I should spend all my time crafting content, not handling the system. I have to increase its reliability. Not only should I use Git and Composer, but I would also need a proper local development environment.

This could also be wrapped into a reusable setup that I could easily replicate for any future WordPress project I work on. How can I make my tools as future-proof as possible?

A few months back, I created WordPress Next, a boilerplate for WordPress projects that comes with a Composer-based setup, DDEV for local development, and a customized configuration file to allow using environment variables, with even a fallback to a .env file if needed.

It was a clear leap forward in how that blog was maintained. Still, it was still not enough. This scaffolding allows to track the critical files such as the themes and some configuration, leaving the WordPress core file to the dependencies.

But all the uploaded files, nor the content, were not tracked and at risk during maintenance. When an upgrade went unexpectedly wrong, I even had to restore those from a custom backup. It was the ultimate drop.

I'm feeling this need to get back to creating stuff and exploring being some digital maker. I've found the first project I will work on. I will build myself a minimalist, resilient static blog based on a simple generator.

I could get some markdown in the entry and output some HTML. I could even plug its repository into a hosting such as Upsun*, which is a Git-based Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). Every commit on the main branch will rebuild and deploy this static blog, and every branch created will create a dev environment. So much more Headspace! This is what I was longing for.

Now, let me roll up my sleeves. It's time to get started and learn a few things along the way. I even got back to playing with Figma. It has been so many years since I have used such a tool.

I'll always be a designer, but not in the sense of drawing square boxes on a screen. I love fixing problems and making them disappear while building empowering tools along the way, closing a distressing future and opening a brighter one.

To desirable futures,

Thomas

• I'm currently an employee of the company behind Upsun. I'm not paid to write that; the product is legitimately very good.

Thomas di Luccio writes about sustainable, desirable, and resilient futures.

© Thomas di Luccio | All rights reserved.

Read more at thomas.diluccio.fr.

I'm still amazed by the energy I used to have and the absolute conviction that journeys towards greater good existed and could be built. I'm a bit more skeptical today, but I still have faith in humanity despite the daily reminders that we might well deserve the mass extinction we created and faced ourselves.

Ways and Means is the name of a United States House of Representatives committee focusing on taxation, tariffs, and other revenue-raising policies. This committee, as well as its equivalent in different countries, is a strategic yet kind of obscure, fundamental, and somehow dull cog in democratic functioning. And I'm fascinated by it!

Even if I no longer serve as a designer, I'm still pretty much thinking, working, and acting like a designer. I constantly envision the path as well as the destination. I'm building bespoke tools alongside what I'm creating.

Ways and Means lays the foundation for strategic visions, which will eventually take shape. Nothing can happen unless you create the tools and conditions for them to exist.

It's a mix of overarching fiscal policies and, at the same time, a collection of opportunistic exploration and last-minute patches. In that sense, it doesn't differ from what I'm doing here.

I do have a long-term vision. A decade ago, I started a journey towards Product. I've seen so many of my peers at odds with the complexity and variability of digital experiences, and I wanted to do better.

I firmly believe that designers should master the material with which they craft. Therefore, I move to engineering for a few years, patiently leveling up in challenge-driven start-ups.

Then, I moved to product advocacy to explore a product's community-building, storytelling, and engagement parts. I'm working closely with the marketing and product marketing people to continue my 360° journey toward product leadership.

The next step would probably be to lead the advocacy of a product before hoping for more strategy product positions. I'll get there eventually, but one step at a time. Let's not rush.

I also do not forget my inclination for public interest and the need for fundamental tools and design frameworks to build desirable and sustainable futures.

Meanwhile, I'd like to use this resurrecting blog as the journal of a digital maker and a tech mad scientist. I want to experiment, scout, build micro products, and tell the stories of those explorations while designing the tools I need to do all of that.

To desirable futures,

Thomas

Thomas di Luccio writes about sustainable, desirable, and resilient futures.

© Thomas di Luccio | All rights reserved.

Read more at thomas.diluccio.fr.

The issue is that I don't really have a plan. I'm not letting myself float in a vacuum, either. I do my best to navigate that strange world to the best of my ability and build a place as comfortable as possible.

So, why restart again? Why blogging again?

A personal experiment might be part of the answer. I want to experiment more and learn how to document the projects I'm starting. I might even finish some of those. Who knows? ;)

I'll expand more on my struggles and hopes in the upcoming installments. But for now, it might end up in a catchy summary: "Do stuff and tell stories". I sometimes explore fun stuff and never tell anyone. At the same time, I'm complaining about the pressure of business as usual. It's time to break that cycle.

At Laracon US 2023 Nashville, the great Aaron Francis gave a super inspiring talk precisely on that topic: "Publishing Your Work". It is surely time to do exactly just that.

I started that blog to document an exploration of a path toward desirable futures. That journey might begin from within. Let's explore it together.

To desirable futures,

Thomas

Thomas di Luccio writes about sustainable, desirable, and resilient futures.

© Thomas di Luccio | All rights reserved.

Read more at thomas.diluccio.fr.

Last week, on January 20th, the inauguration of the Biden-Harris administration took place. This day marked the end of four years of chaos and insanity. This can only be seen as a historic event, even if eventually nothing emerges from this presidency. We reached a point that low that common decency is remarkable.

But something absolutely unexpected and beautiful happened. We witnessed the birth of a giant. It is remarkable, for me as a European, to discover that poetry is still cool in the US. And there is an inaugural poet picked to recite poetry for the occasion. It is so amazingly refreshing to see. I truly envy this smart elegance.

The fabulous Amanda Gorman delivered "The Hill We Climb" a poem written for the occasion and adapted after the attended coup on the Capitole. The videos have been seen millions of times. And I must have watched it more than 20 times myself, moved to tears each time. I didn't know her before that.

What a shock. What a talented person. This "skinny black girl", as she described herself, whose head barely emerged from the podium, delivered flawlessly a text so powerful that it has eclipsed the speech of the President himself. She captured the state of her country and democracy, put it in a historical perspective, and offered paths toward renewed enlightenment. All in a bit more than 5 minutes. I cannot help thinking of Maya Angelou listening to her. But Amanda Gorman is only 22 and has already raised herself among the giants of American literature.

I thought of the pride her mother felt. I thought of all the beauty she may bring to the world in her lifetime. I thought of the magnitude of her work once she is an old lady, having witnessed thousands of lives and mourned thousands of deaths. What a chance we have to get to know her. I felt lucky, blessed, and empowered.

On her website, she describes herself as a "wordsmith and change-maker". We can admit this is pretty accurate. She became one of my heroes. I wrote a couple of weeks ago that "words and concepts and the material with which I am meant to work with." The very least we can say is that Amanda Gorman is bringing beauty to this world.

She creates worlds with words. She enables desirable futures and empowers people so they can make a contribution, either big or small, to creating those desirable futures. This is exactly the purpose of Common Future(s). In our talk [FR], Marie-Cécile Godwin and I explored this idea. We may not fix all the issues of a collapsing world ourselves, but we may enable others to take their share and contribute.

How scared, exhausted, and discouraged we may feel, we can make small contributions and empower others. We also have the power to enable desirable and sustainable futures. This eternal light is in all of us. We are wordsmiths, and it's time we start enabling new futures.

Thomas di Luccio writes about sustainable, desirable, and resilient futures.

© Thomas di Luccio | All rights reserved.

Read more at thomas.diluccio.fr.

I will start with this. The very same day I had to give a call to warn I was about to resign, we learned that a dear friend passed away of cancer, our son's best friend has tested positive with COVID-19, and there has been a reshuffle of the board, of my partner's company. That's quite a lot of bad signs. The day was not going to be the best one.

Was it a good time to resign and add even more uncertainty? Or could there have been a better time to move on now that everything is collapsing? Anyway, I did it. I may have lumped in my throat, but I jumped into the void.

Funny enough, I came across this video the very same day. It's a mesmerizing film about people about to jump from a 10-meter tower.

Oh I love the irony of life. Will they jump? Or back away? I know I won't even climb on the top of such a tower. But I am ready to quit a position I enjoyed, colleagues I admire, and a very sane and respectful work environment for a rare yet insecure opportunity.

I don't feel like getting stuck in a crippling nostalgia. I feel like recalling all the learnings I made those 5 years. And to be thankful for them.

I truly enjoyed how the company and the project were managed, and I am thankful for that. I will keep it while in charge of a project and a team. It proves what you can achieve when you talk and act as grown-ups and to grown-ups.

I learned the innovative and agile way of creating a product in startups, and I am grateful for that. I witnessed first-hand the "better done than perfect" mantra put into action. And with a little touch here and there, slowly, the product takes shape, and its quality, functionalities, and usability improve. That's pretty smart and resilient. You do what you can when you can. You have to be smart enough so every work-in-progress can still reach a market, even a small one, at every step of the journey.

I learned how to dig into code and technologies. I learned how to learn new things, and I am grateful for that. I am convinced designers should have a perfect understanding of the material they are working on. I have been allowed to put this belief into action.

I have met beautiful people, and I am grateful for that.

I have been allowed to thrive, and I am grateful for that.

It was an incredible chapter of my work life. It's now time to write a new one, starting with a blank page.

It's time to move on.

What's next?

Thomas di Luccio writes about sustainable, desirable, and resilient futures.

© Thomas di Luccio | All rights reserved.

Read more at thomas.diluccio.fr.

However, going back to the design core principles can be really helpful in helping us thrive while failing. The work of a designer is never done. It's a never-ending iterating process that involves collecting data, exploring and implementing solutions, monitoring them, then collecting even more data and improving them a bit more each time until they fit perfectly.

I love so many things about this slow and passionate way of working. Above all, there is the idea that knowledge is the key to everything. It's not about instincts or creative impulses. It's about empowerment through knowledge.

I spend a lot of time watching American talk shows and British comedies. (I am particularly fond of Seth Meyers, Stephen Colbert, SNL, and Ricky Gervais. It's also a way to improve my English and learn more about those cultures I love.

One day, I came across an interview with Oprah Winfrey on The Ellen Show. They were talking about Maya Angelou, possibly sometime after her passing. And this quote came out: "When you know better, you do better!"

I must have blanked out when she said those words. Maya Angelou said, with wisdom and talent, I don't have what I was trying to figure out all those years.

Not only it's OK to fail. However, one may welcome their failure with joy as they are opportunities to do better. For someone with a stroke and anxiety, this is truly liberating.

And it's even more than that. This is also a path to follow. This is a response to this search for meaning. When my time comes, what will be my legacy as I embrace my whole journey? What will I have done to empower others with knowledge? What tools will I leave behind so that people can tackle their share of complexity to make the world a better place?

I don't have answers to those questions yet. I am humbly trying to do that with my students, but it's not enough. I am feeling this urge to get back to work and start sketching something in this direction.

It's now time to do better.

Thomas di Luccio writes about sustainable, desirable, and resilient futures.

© Thomas di Luccio | All rights reserved.

Read more at thomas.diluccio.fr.

I also went through a bit of internal turmoil, feeling the conflicts and the cognitive dissonances. As a designer, I vow to bring beauty to the world. And how long since I did anything creative? Quite an imposter syndrome has stuck with me. I am a designer with no academic training in design. I came to design from the mechanical engineering. And I take pride in this. But I suck at drawing, so I kind of stopped designing stuff for a while, even though I started teaching design.

And somehow, all the pieces came together quite recently.

So, I come from a technical background (engineering + MBA). I am a designer by trade. Believing designers should master the material with which they are working, I taught myself how to code and, later, joined as a developer a startup with a very high level of expectation requiring all the technologies it uses. And I learned and grew a lot by their side. But I knew that, no matter how hard I worked, I would never become a real developer and have the same talent as my colleagues. And, this also doesn't help me bring beauty to the world.

A couple of weeks ago, I had a conversation with a friend and fellow designer about a position that might have been interesting to consider. He told me that one of my assets for this position was that I am a non-visual designer. I handle concepts and work to shrink the complexity of user experiences at large, and this was invaluable for the position. Some too many visual-only designers try to solve every problem with a new user interface.

Non-visual designer. Coining the expression that way lit a spark. This is it. This is who I am.

I read philosophy, mostly philosophy of technology. I used to make a living writing speeches. I am never happier than when I read books and write stories. I am a designer, and I am meant to work with words, concepts, and materials. Suddenly, everything made sense.

If I never applied for this job, I owe him one for helping me figure out how to continue my journey. He brought beauty into my world.

So now, it's time for me to rise, shine, and continue.

Thomas di Luccio writes about sustainable, desirable, and resilient futures.

© Thomas di Luccio | All rights reserved.

Read more at thomas.diluccio.fr.

Thomas di Luccio writes about sustainable, desirable, and resilient futures.

© Thomas di Luccio | All rights reserved.

Read more at thomas.diluccio.fr.

Cette démarche de déconstruction m'amène toujours plus loin dans les profondeurs des fonctionnements des matériaux, techniques ou organisations. Cela a le double mérite d'accroître ma compréhension des sujets mais aussi ma capacité d'anticiper l'impact de mes créations, comme des procédés même de conception. Je suis d'autant plus horrifié par l'état critique de notre planète, de ses ressources englouties bien plus rapidement qu'elle ne peut les renouveler, et de l'extinction rapide d'un nombre toujours plus grand d'espèces animales et végétales.

Si je me situe bien désormais dans le contexte d'effondrement, je ne me définis pas pour autant comme collapsologue, et cela pour deux raisons. J'estime d'abord n'avoir malgré tout pas assez travaillé la question pour me définir positivement comme tel. Je refuse d'embrasser des qualificatifs au seul titre qu'ils sont dans l'air du temps.

La seconde raison est philosophique. Je veux être optimiste et veux toujours chercher la lumière, même au plus sombre de la nuit. Ne nous trompons pas. Je ne souhaite pas nier les évidences, ni les difficultés. Je vois parfois des collapsologues sortir de nulle part. Certains portent un message que j'estime peu construit et qui cache mal un autre agenda. On voit commencer à fleurir des volontés carbo-fascistes ou totalitaires comme réponse populiste aux effondrements en cours ou à venir.

Faut-il prophétiser la disparition de systèmes et doctrines que l'on abhorre au seul titre de sa non adhésion à leurs thèses ? Peut-être manquerais-je d'ambition en refusant de concevoir seul un nouveau plan global d'un nouvel ordre mondial. Je souhaite me concentrer sur une chose, et une seule. J'estime que notre refus obstiné de prendre en compte les conséquences réelles de nos actes et décisions est la cause de nos problèmes. Je vais tâcher de démontrer ce propos et de fournir des outils encapacitants pour celles et ceux qui auront envie de changer cette donne.

Aussi, je n'ai nullement l'intention de pointer du doigts des personnes ou décerner des diplômes de collapsologie en cachant mon parti-pris derrière un paravent de neutralité savante. La question qui m'habite est celle de la pénurie de ressources et de leur usage efficient. Je n'ai aucune ressource disponible pour ce genre de chikayas.

Je laisserai ensuite chacune et chacun, selon leur vision du monde, tirer ses propres conclusions sur les doctrines politiques et économiques à déconstruire et/ou reconstruire. Libre à chacun de préférer envisager le problème sous l'angle de l'anthropocène, capitalocène ou chthulucène.

Au fil des ans, la raison de mon engagement dans le design n'a pas changé. Je souhaite toujours apporter de la beauté au monde. Par contre, les modalités d'une telle entreprise ont évolué. Désormais, je cherche les moyens de concevoir des objets, dispositifs ou services qui, non seulement ne font pas de mal à la planète, mais au contraire ont la capacité de la réparer. La seule chose que je souhaite voir casser est ce paradigme qui fait qu'une génération laisse systématiquement à ses enfants la planète dans un état moins bon qu'elle ne la reçu de ses parents.

Ce blog est là pour cristalliser mes réflexions sur le sujet et peut-être que ma position sur le sujet pourra changer au fil du temps. Il est là aussi pour ouvrir une discussion et je serais heureux de chercher à construire avec vous un futur désirable.

Thomas di Luccio writes about sustainable, desirable, and resilient futures.

© Thomas di Luccio | All rights reserved.

Read more at thomas.diluccio.fr.