In con­fronting how lit­tle we know, we can cre­ate greater space to learn. We gain knowl­edge when we get out of our own way and work togeth­er. We also ben­e­fit when we are more con­sid­er­ate of the count­less oth­er species liv­ing on this planet.

Most of the designs made by humans place humans at the cen­ter of impor­tance. This act of hubris can cause con­sid­er­able harm. To help cor­rect this design flaw, we can learn to

imple­ment xeno-design—or the con­cept of design with aware­ness of the oth­er in mind. In this way, we can dras­ti­cal­ly improve the human-cen­tered sys­tems designed at the expense of work­ers’ well­be­ing, and respon­si­ble for wast­ing untold resources. Through xeno-design prac­tices, we can out­line a means of mak­ing space for all that exists, thus com­ing into greater over­all bal­ance with the rest of life on Earth. 

Pro­fes­sor john a. pow­ell (who directs UC Berkeley’s Haas Insti­tute for a Fair and Inclu­sive Soci­ety, and who inten­tion­al­ly spells his name in all low­er-case to empha­size that one does not take pow­er over anoth­er) explains how humans evolve along essen­tial needs to make mean­ing and belong. The main chal­lenge to belong­ing occurs through four main areas of sep­a­ra­tion: from the divine, from nature, from each oth­er, and from one­self. In coun­ter­ing the destruc­tive effects that come from these areas of sep­a­ra­tion, pow­ell describes how sci­ence and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty each strength­en a nar­ra­tive about bridg­ing divides between peo­ple and with nature. Pur­su­ing prac­tices that pri­or­i­tize belong­ing with­in com­mu­ni­ties big and small, will have a tremen­dous­ly pos­i­tive impact on the sys­tems that humans design in the future. Human-made sys­tems, like gov­ern­ment or econ­o­my, must also respect, and account for, the many dif­fer­ent expe­ri­ences a diverse pop­u­la­tion of peo­ple will have through­out life. In oth­er words, the more we acknowl­edge the com­mon­al­i­ty of how each of us occu­pies a sub­jec­tive real­i­ty, the bet­ter we can become at cre­at­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for peo­ple to feel a sense of belong­ing in society’s col­lec­tive reality.

When peo­ple strug­gle to have their basic needs met—like not hav­ing access to food, shel­ter, or hygiene—life takes on a dis­pro­por­tion­ate degree of suf­fer­ing. Yet, when these chal­lenges are over­come, and when no injus­tice is inflict­ed, there is an abun­dance of joy to be expe­ri­enced. The vibra­tional fre­quen­cy of bliss is ever present, and can be accessed when the appro­pri­ate con­di­tions for thriv­ing life are estab­lished. Inspi­ra­tion and pos­i­tive vibra­tions are con­tin­u­ous­ly cours­ing through a vast array of mat­ter. There, in that groove of good­ness, is where we want to focus. There is where we want to grow. There, where the heart, mind, and body syn­the­size through love, is where we intend to work, improve, and inno­vate.