Imagining this or that future as a way of generating hope and "hopeful action," far from moving us towards any desired outcome, is simply occluding our eyes from the reality that is right in front of us, daily. Our time is incredibly uncertain and our lives are dominated by catastrophic thinking, with fear more and more determining out real actions and outcomes, on the local or world scale. If we finally drop all pretense that hope can have any bearing on the future, we must then face the level of fear running freely through world affairs today and equally we must face the fact that predictability is impossible in regards to the future. Under these circumstances we can ask: is there any adequate way of addressing the future at all: a way that does not blind us to the fearful realities of our times; a way that does not address the unknown future in terms of predictability or hope; a way that nonetheless may indeed help prepare the unknown future? There is, and I will call it the way of the "artist." From the Introduction