When I was young, my best friend and I loved to play games rooted in imagination. We’d spend hours in the backyard making forts. Or, we’d explore the woods behind the houses across the street. Garbage bags were parachutes. Jump ropes were snakes. Wooden blocks were the raw material for houses we designed for our Fischer Price little people.

Once, we planted two trifold jelly lawn chairs folded into triangles in the middle of her backyard and pretended we were sailing the ocean. Cramped and uncomfortable, we begged our parents to let us sleep in our makeshift boats, beach towels for blankets.

Thankfully, they said no.

I know some people keep that sense of wonder, that ability to build entire worlds in their mind. Children’s authors seem particularly adept. Folks who write sci-fi, too. Activists and organizers who constantly push us to imagine something better for ourselves.

Somewhere along the line, though, many of us let that muscle atrophy. Instead of imagining new worlds, we spend our time looking for ways to better fit into the one we live in—even when the one we live in doesn’t really suit us.

I have many thoughts about why we stay on autopilot, letting our default settings hum quietly in the background, helping us unconsciously serve as a cog in the machinery that upholds a system that doesn’t serve us and is also responsible for the direct harm of many.

When I’m honest, parenting my trans son was what finally shook me loose. The pangs of discomfort and unquiet I’d been feeling most of my life came clearly into focus, like the scene from the Matrix where Neo was first awoken: Welcome to the real world.

I hear so many people reflexively ask how abolishing, rebuilding or reframing deeply entrenched and largely accepted systems, attitudes and beliefs is even possible. I ask those questions of myself regularly!

What I think most people are really afraid of—what I sometimes have trouble reconciling, too—is that they won’t be in this world to see the change they’re working for come to life. When everything feels huge and overwhelming, it’s sometimes easy to believe nothing you do will result in meaningful change.

There is often a little voice in the back of my head that says: “What the hell good is that going to do?”

But here’s what I ask myself when I’m feeling deflated and need to ground myself in action: Who wants to live in a world they’re not actively engaged in creating?

And the most essential part of creating, for me, is my imagination. Looking around and thinking about the world I want to live in, the world I want for my trans son. Imagining what would need to change to make that version of the world more possible.

So, my invitation to you today is to think about something you’d like to see different in this world. Imagine what would need to exist for the world you want to live in to start taking shape.

Then, find one small way to make the world you want a reality.

The Light Links

Some actions that are not protesting or voting

Complicit/Accomplice: A digital resource for cis allies

Book Rec: Let’s Move the Needle: An activism handbook for artists, crafters, creatives, and makers

This Is Water by David Foster Wallace