Drafting Blueprints

“You’re going to be deciding as the days, as the years unfold what you will do in life – what your life’s work will be. Set out to do it well.” – Dr. King

Until a couple of hours ago, it seemed like a horrifying cosmic mistake that the U.S. presidential inauguration would coincide with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day. But after burying myself in work to avoid almost all mention of the day’s activities, I decided to take an afternoon break and honor my tradition of listening to Dr. King’s speeches. I selected “What is your life’s blueprint?” since I couldn’t immediately recall listening to it in recent years. This speech was addressed to Black youth in Philadelphia just six months before Dr. King’s assassination.

My passion for youth work brought me into the world of technology and design and Dr. King’s rumination on life’s “blueprint” again brought these together for me. The short speech signaled that perhaps the inauguration date wasn’t a mistake, but a cosmic provocation.

Creating and learning alongside young people has always helped me to direct my attention away from the despairing toward the inspiring. It is easy to surrender my own mind to the rip current of hopelessness, but I would never want the young people around me to feel that they should succumb to these torrents. Youth work sustains my speculative imagination and encourages its inclination towards radical optimism.

So, for now, I sit with the provocation that today marks a conjuncture that I must contend with by sketching an outline created in partnership with the talented creatives who surround me now and came before. Together we just might illustrate a much-needed blueprint for our collective future.