Bronwyn Williams says we have two choices, between the dangerous and prevalent postalgia, abandoning ourselves to the present or progressing towards the future with purpose...

However, if we want to have a say in what that new world will be like, we need to have an idea of what it is that we actually want.

As such, societies plagued with postalgia turn to escapism - be that through substance abuse, doomscrolling on social media, or virtual reality - rather than on conscious future plans for progress. Postalgia can affect individuals who lose faith in their own futures; businesses who seek to extract short-term value rather than investing in long-term returns, and nation states that perpetually steal from the future to placate the needs and demands of the present population.

In other words, postalgia can be seen to set in when we lose our purpose; that is, when we no longer have anything worth progressing towards.

And that is really the point. We have two choices: we can get stuck in today, in the endless present and end up in a future that we did not plan, participate in or choose; or we can look to the future with purpose and arrive there on our own terms. The choice is ours. Postalgia or purpose? Which do you choose?

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#PulpNonFiction: On postalgia, purpose and progress - Bizcommunity.com