In his book, the Craftsman, Richard Sennet talks about the liminal space between problem-solving and problem-finding as crucial to the mastery of skill. An idea that I have come across in a few different spaces is to keep a list of the problems you want to spend your time on — the ones you want to be thinking about everyday over the course of years.

So, here is a living list of the problems that I want to stay focused on.

(1) Is it possible to build around cooperative models rather than competitive ones?

Capitalism has been fuelled by a misguided belief that a free market based on competition would create a better world. That myth has failed and led to rampant ecological and societal disaster. Economic disparity is widening and our finite resources have been pushed to their limit. It's time for a different model. I believe that cooperation is essential to our shared future and models should be built with this at their core.

(2) What does a healthy public sphere look like and what does it take to build?

Our cities have been eroded by private interest for decades. They have been built around cars, leading to lifestyles disconnected from nature and one another. This has had a particularly negative effect on the most vulnerable members of our communities—the poor, the elderly, those with physical and mental disabilities, and kids—who have been pushed to the margins. Public life is also where diversity of thought, belief, and culture can coexist with mutual benefit. It's where we learn to share and care for one another.

(3) How and why do people move from self-interest to selflessness? What inspires it? What gets in the way? What gets someone to act against their own short term best interest?

Dorothy Day talks about making a society where it is easier for people to be good. Reflecting on my own career, this has been the ethical question at the core of it—how do you cultivate the right context for people to act selflessly, generously, self-sacrificially? It was something I explored during my time working with teenagers in an upper-middle class community, trying to build spaces that enabled them to take steps in selflessness. And its something I think about in the work that I do now trying to engage new audiences with great social impact work.

(4) Can slow and deliberate thinking remain an asset in a culture that rewards a reactive and faster pace? Is it possible to stay slow in my approach to learning and thinking about problems?

In contrast to the Facebook motto, 'move fast and break things', I want to cultivate an approach to problem solving that is slower, perhaps almost hard to see in the micro. I am drawn to what the writer, Josie Sparrow, calls mole work; in which the depth and hiddenness is the point. In a way, this problem defines the approach I want to take to all of these problems: one that is slow, deliberate, and intentional.

(5) Can communication remain ethical in the attention economy? What value can it add beyond just competing with more noise? Is there a way to remain hopeful, delightful, and challenging without being reduced to content?

I work in communication and marketing, helping organizations reach more people with their work. Before that I was a communicator, mostly in the realm of public speaking. In the attention economy, communication has become quantity over quality, a sheer onslaught of volume trying to get us to click, scroll, or buy. We are inundated with this communication in every moment of our lives. I often wonder how to keep the work that I do as not falling into this trap. Can meaningful communication be heard without becoming more noise?

(6) What will be the collective impact of technology, and specifically AI, on our ability to think and learn? Is our need for immediate and endless gratification eroding the ability to focus and slowly build skills over a longer period of time?

Technology enables speed, convenience, and quantity. AI has applied this to information and learning. I am concerned about the impact this will have on our collective human ability to ask questions and come to conclusions, to problem solve, and to learn. There is a history of forgetting skills as machine convenience takes over. Will this happen to our ability to take a thought from start to finish?

(7) What is within my sphere of influence when it comes to the climate crisis? What patterns or behaviours can I change that will make a difference? Where can I join into collective efforts that are going further than my individual action ever can? Who is within my reach that I can influence?

I believe that the climate crisis (and the compounding crises that it will bring) is the most important problem our world has to face right now. This means both doing what we can now to lessen the impact and planning for dealing with the changes that will come. When it comes to personal vs collective responsibility, I fall into a both/and approach. What I'm interested in is always keeping this problem in front of me and continuously adapting my own life to do the absolute most that I can.

(8) What is the role and shape of the church for the 21st Century?

This is a big one that I am still formulating.