Sand Shoes for a Changing World

As I think about the world in October 2026, I find myself imagining a desert. The sand is made from things that once seemed solid: familiar careers, accepted measures of success, and assumptions about what a person must do to make a useful life.

Some of these things may endure. Others may crumble beneath our feet. The changes gathering around artificial intelligence, and whatever may eventually come of the idea we call the singularity, invite us to consider how we will travel when the ground no longer supports our old way of walking.

I imagine two broad attitudes toward this prospect. Some people will lean into it, curious about what they might do. Others will hesitate, resist, or simply continue with the life they know. These are attitudes we may move between ourselves. A person can be eager about one change and frightened by another.

What interests me is the possibility that those willing to explore will discover opportunities unlike the ones we have been taught to seek. The reward may have surprisingly little to do with income, reputation, or getting ahead of somebody else. It may have much more to do with waking up glad to have another day.

I think of this as success measured by a good use of time.

We each have some inward sense of what that means. We feel the difference between a day merely spent and a day we are glad to have lived. Yet knowing that difference takes attention. It asks us to examine what we value, what we have borrowed from others, and what remains worthwhile when no one is watching or keeping score.

The people best prepared for a changing world may be those who have already spent time asking these questions. When new possibilities appear, they will have some idea of what they want to do with them. A powerful tool can help us carry out a purpose. We still have to consider the purpose.

This is where the sand shoes come in.

I picture someone fashioning a pair by hand, broad enough to carry their weight across the shifting surface. The material is thought: curiosity, judgment, patience, a willingness to reconsider. The fit is personal. We learn from one another, but each of us has to discover how to walk.

Much of this preparation happens between our ears. Technical skills will have their uses, of course. But the deeper training is learning to think. Can we recognize a worthwhile opportunity when it arrives in an unfamiliar form? Can we release an old measure of success without losing our sense of worth? Can we admit that a belief which once served us may no longer fit the world before us?

Old values and old arrangements can become the dust of past epochs. We need not despise everything behind us to recognize that some of it will no longer carry us forward. We can bring what is useful, and learn to travel differently.

Beyond the desert, I imagine an oasis. There are people there, making things, learning things, tending to one another. They have much to share at the end of the day, though very little of it may be an account of money earned.

This matters to me because a good life has a social element. Being successful alone on an island is a different thing from living well with others. Our participation and cooperation help establish the conditions of a quality life, and then give that life its daily substance.

Someone has an idea. Someone else improves it. A third person sees a need the first two overlooked. We teach, listen, help, and make room. The satisfaction belongs partly to what we accomplish and partly to the fact that we accomplish it together.

I hope the opportunities ahead will eventually support decent, peaceful lives even for people who have little interest in pushing toward the frontier. I hope that no one will go hungry or unhoused, and that no one will be permanently left behind. But this is a hope, not something technology has promised us. Whether abundance is shared will depend on choices we make together.

The transition could be difficult. I can imagine ten or twenty years of disruption, though I cannot put a reliable timetable on it. Those years would be real portions of real lives. We cannot wave them away because we like the view on the other side. Helping one another through them is part of the work.

Nor must everyone become an explorer to live well. A quiet life can be a good use of time. The question is whether we have considered that life and chosen it, rather than allowing an inherited definition of success to choose for us.

For those who do feel drawn forward, I imagine a particular sort of morning. We rise early because the day holds something we want to meet. There is a question to pursue, a thing to make, a person to help. By evening, we have something worth sharing.

That is the future I find most inviting. I cannot know how near the oasis is, or exactly what we will find there. But we can begin considering what makes a life worth living, and learning how to walk together, while we fashion our sand shoes.

Questions or comments? Join me on the softypapa Discord server. That’s the main place to talk with me and continue the conversation.