Questions are magic portals
A visualization, a velvet couch, and the civilizational impact of living the questions.
When I introduce The People’s Dreaming Collective, I often start with an invitation: Call to mind a specific place where you feel welcomed and connected. Safe and valued. Maybe it’s a friend’s home, a dance studio, a faith congregation, or even a local bar or coffee shop. Arrive there. Imagine yourself in that space – the sounds, the quality of light, and the sensations in your body.
Take a pause. What specific place comes to mind for you?
I arrive at my grandparents’ corner apartment on a leafy street in Southern California. A place overflowing with warmth, tasteful tchotchkes, and the smells of delicious home cooking – porridge with dates or roasted chicken, depending on the time of day. In their home, my body is at ease, sinking into the brown velvet couch for unplanned naps. There is no judgment. The love is unconditional. I feel seen and celebrated.
With this visualization, we are invited to conjure places of comfort and belonging. What would it take to design public services that feel like our most cherished places? Like a visit to my grandparents’ apartment?
My late grandfather Stan first opened my eyes to the power of questions.1 In my early twenties, I was struggling at a major life crossroads and called him for advice. He told me, “There is no right answer. Instead, focus on asking the right questions.” His wisdom was revelatory for me, someone who craves control. Contrary to all my conditioning, the complexity and mystery of life often defy one right answer.
More recently, I have been hooked on the idea of “living the questions” – a practice I encountered while listening to the On Being podcast with Krista Tippet.2 The concept comes from German poet Rainer Maria Rilke in Letters to a Young Poet:
“Be patient towards all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything.
Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”
– Rainer Maria Rilke
Last month, I had the chance to co-lead a digital workshop at the Creative Bureaucracy Festival.3 At the end of the session, we invited participating public sector leaders from around the globe to identify one emergent question that they wanted to live into. Here are a few that were shared:
How can I show up for my government job with more curiosity?
What does it mean to do policy-making in a way that actually prioritizes pluralism and participatory methods?
How can I repair trust with communities who have been harmed by government?
As these examples illustrate, living the questions can be a practical exercise that empowers us to show up differently to our jobs, our lives, and our beliefs about the world.4 As Krista Tippet explains in the On Being podcast, the act of living the questions “is intimate and it is civilizational all at the same time.”
Like so many institutions, government is designed around plans and answers. Sometimes, this structure is useful. Other times, it leaves stiflingly little room for reinvention, even when we know a different way is needed.
The People’s Dreaming Collective is a project, prompt, and container to explore radically different futures for how we govern. The task can be overwhelming. Where do we begin?
For me, living the questions has been a liberating first step. Questions are playful guides. In small and incremental ways, questions offer doorways to new realities. They give me permission to dissolve boundaries between the narrow answers I am familiar with and the vibrant potential of my most fabulous dreams.
Questions are magic portals between the world that is and the world we deserve. Between government as it exists today and governance that feels as safe and nourishing as my grandparent’s velvety couch.
I will leave you with a prompt from Krista Tippet and the On Being podcast:
“Formulate a question that is rolling around in your life. Write it down, hone it, and make a commitment to it. Commit to having it over your shoulder, in your ear, as you move through your life. See what it invites you to see and to move towards and to move away from. I would start by writing this down and giving it a month, or giving it a year. I have found that if you are faithful to living a question, that question will be faithful back to you.”
– Krista Tippet
What question is alive in you right now? As a person? As someone who uses public services? As a public servant?
We would love to hear your questions! Share feedback by replying to our email, commenting on the post, or writing us at hello@peoplesdreamingcollective.com.
This is one of many love letters celebrating the thinkers, ancestors, teachers, and dreamers who inspire us. We believe naming and acknowledging lineage is an antidote to extraction and a powerful tool for connection. Learn more about this practice at Dismantling The Master’s Tools.
The On Being podcast is a repository of wisdom. The episode on living the questions is part of a series called Foundations for Being Alive Now, which explores “life-giving, hope-generating words, ideas and practices.” We highly recommend listening to the full series!
I had the honor of co-facilitating the Creative Bureaucracy Festival workshop with the gentle and generous Noah Schöppl, a collective member who has been working on transformative governance in Germany.
I have woven the practice into different corners of my life – from replacing my personal New Year’s resolutions with questions to asking the government teams I work with to set questions (in addition to goals) when project planning. Every time it works wonders!