Mark: Here’s a fun, or maybe terrifying, fact to start your day: we are now closer to the year 2050 than we are to 1990. Michelle: Hold on, say that again. Closer to 2050? That can't be right. 1990 still feels like it was, what, ten, maybe fifteen years ago? My brain refuses to accept that math. Mark: I know, it feels like a glitch in the matrix. But that feeling is exactly what futurist Ari Wallach tackles in his book, Longpath: Becoming the Great Ancestors Our Future Needs. Michelle: Ari Wallach... he's the guy with that super popular TED talk, right? The one who advises big organizations on long-term strategy? Mark: Exactly. He's a social systems strategist who has worked with everyone from the UN to major corporations. And he wrote this book because he believes our biggest problems—from climate change to our own personal anxiety—all stem from one single root cause. And it's probably not what you think. Michelle: Okay, I'm hooked. Don't leave me hanging. What is it? Mark: It's our addiction to the 'now.' A pathological focus on the short term.

Michelle: That feels... both obvious and profound. I mean, who isn't addicted to the now? My phone buzzes and my brain just lights up. Mark: You've hit it exactly. Wallach starts by making this feel incredibly personal. He tells this story about being in his kitchen, making dinner for his family. He gets a notification from his twelve-year-old daughter's school. It’s one of those automated alerts: "Ruby has missed her Spanish assignment." Michelle: Oh, I know that feeling. The immediate drop in your stomach. The parental panic alarm. Mark: Precisely. He describes this instant rush of chemicals—anger, shame, fear. He's thinking, "She's going to fail! She won't get into a good college! I've failed as a father!" It’s a complete emotional spiral over a single missed homework assignment. He calls them "dragon eggs" hatching in his stomach. Michelle: Dragon eggs! That's a perfect description. It feels that epic in the moment. Mark: It does! But then he catches himself. He realizes this intense, visceral reaction is an ancient survival mechanism. It's our limbic system, our fight-or-flight response, which was designed to protect us from, you know, a saber-toothed tiger jumping out of the bushes. Michelle: But now it's being triggered by a push notification from the school's grading portal. Mark: Exactly. Our brains are running ancient survival software on a world that's constantly screaming 'DANGER!' over things like a B- in Spanish. Wallach calls this "short-termism," and he argues our entire society is built to trigger it constantly. Breaking news, stock market dips, social media likes... it's a relentless assault on our nervous system. Michelle: That makes so much sense. And it’s not just our phones. He talks about this idea of the "Official Future," right? That feels connected. It’s like we’re not only reacting to the moment, but we’re reacting within a pre-written script we didn't even agree to. Mark: That's a brilliant connection. The "Official Future" is that set of shared assumptions about what life should look like. Go to the right school, get the stable job, buy the house, have 2.5 kids. It’s the life path promoted by consumer capitalism, which, as he points out, was engineered by figures like Edward Bernays in the 1950s to turn us into constant consumers. Michelle: Right, Bernays, the father of public relations. He used his uncle Sigmund Freud's psychological theories to sell products by linking them to our deepest insecurities and desires. Mark: And it worked. The "Official Future" tells us happiness is just one more purchase away. It keeps us on a hedonic treadmill, focused on the next immediate reward, the next dopamine hit. We're so busy chasing this pre-packaged future and reacting to the chaos of the present that we never stop to ask a fundamental question. Michelle: What question? Mark: "To what end?" Why are we doing any of this? Michelle: Wow. Okay, so we're basically hamsters on a wheel, inside a cage we didn't even know we were in. That's... a little bleak, Mark. How do we get out? Mark: Well, that's the whole point of the book. It's not about a 10-step plan. It's about a profound shift in mindset. It’s about learning to practice "Longpath."

Michelle: Alright, so "Longpath" is the antidote. But it sounds so grand. "Becoming a great ancestor." I'm just trying to get through my Wednesday. How is this not just another form of pressure? Mark: That’s the beauty of it. He argues it's actually the opposite. It's a way to find peace and meaning within the chaos. And he introduces this idea with a simple, ancient story from the Talmud. Michelle: I'm listening. Mark: A wise man named Choni is walking down a road and sees a very old man planting a carob tree. Choni knows that carob trees take seventy years to bear fruit. So he asks the man, "Do you really expect to live long enough to eat the fruit from this tree?" Michelle: That's a fair question. A little blunt, but fair. Mark: And the old man's reply is the heart of the entire book. He says, "I found this world provided with carob trees. As my ancestors planted them for me, so I too plant them for my descendants." Michelle: Oh, that's beautiful. It gives me chills. It’s such a simple, powerful expression of continuity. Mark: It is. And Wallach says that is Longpath thinking. It’s built on two core pillars. The first is what he calls Transgenerational Empathy. Michelle: Okay, that's a mouthful. Break it down for me. Mark: It means developing real empathy in three directions. First, looking backward to our ancestors. Not just to build a family tree, but to understand the emotional and cultural "heirlooms" they passed down to us—both the good and the bad. Like his story of snapping at his wife over frozen groceries, and realizing it was an echo of his father's trauma from the Holocaust. Understanding that history allowed him to break the cycle. Michelle: So it’s about understanding our own programming. What's the second direction? Mark: Looking inward, which is about self-compassion. It's about acknowledging our mortality and living a life aligned with what truly matters to us. He uses the example of Starbucks, after that terrible incident in 2018 where two Black men were arrested. Instead of getting defensive, the company shut down 8,000 stores for anti-bias training. That was a form of corporate self-compassion—admitting a failure and committing to do better. Michelle: That's a great example. It’s about learning, not shaming. And the third direction must be forward. Mark: Exactly. Looking forward with empathy for our descendants. And this is where it gets really interesting. He cites these studies where people are shown a digitally aged photo of themselves. Those people put twice as much money into a retirement account as the people who saw a current photo. Michelle: Whoa, really? Just seeing their future self made them more responsible? Mark: It created an emotional connection. Suddenly, that future person wasn't a stranger. They were them. That's empathy for your future self, and by extension, for future generations. It’s about making them real in our minds. Michelle: Okay, so that's Transgenerational Empathy. What's the second pillar of Longpath? Mark: The second pillar is Futures Thinking and Telos. Michelle: Telos? Sounds like a Greek god or a new Tesla model. What does he actually mean by that? Mark: (laughs) It's an ancient Greek word for an ultimate aim or purpose. It's your North Star. It's the "to what end?" we talked about. If Transgenerational Empathy is the engine, Telos is the steering wheel. It's the vision that guides all your actions. Michelle: This is where I can see some of the criticism mentioned in reviews coming in—that the ideas can feel a bit abstract or vague. How does a company or a person actually use Telos in a practical way? Mark: He gives a fantastic business example. A construction manager named Michelle—no relation, I assume—is building a new high school sports stadium. She's on a tight budget and deadline. A supplier offers a new, corn-based track surface. It's more expensive and will take longer to install, but it will last five times as long and has a much lower carbon footprint. Michelle: The short-term brain says no way. Stick to the plan, get your bonus. Mark: Exactly. Her initial impulse is to reject it. But she pauses. She asks herself, "What is my Telos here? Is it to make my bonus this quarter? Or is it to build the best possible stadium for generations of students to come?" She's thinking like a great ancestor. Michelle: And she chooses the better material. Mark: She chooses the better material. She decided her ultimate aim was long-term value, not short-term gain. That's Telos in action. It’s a filter for your decisions.

Michelle: You know, putting it all together, it feels like the whole point of the book isn't about predicting the future. It's about being worthy of a future. It’s about shifting our core question from 'What will happen to me?' to 'What will they, generations from now, say about us?' Mark: That is the perfect summary. It takes us right back to the beginning of the book, where Wallach has us imagine standing in the Roman Colosseum. We look at this massive, ancient structure and we wonder about the people who built it, who fought in it, who cheered in it. We judge them, we empathize with them, we learn from them. Michelle: And his point is that one day, our world will be someone else's Colosseum. Mark: Precisely. People in the year 4020 will look back at the remnants of our time—our stadiums, our social media archives, the plastic in the oceans—and they will ask questions about us. And Wallach's ultimate argument is that what steers the future isn't some grand government policy or technological breakthrough. It's the sum of our daily micro-interactions. Michelle: The "trim tabs." I love that metaphor from Buckminster Fuller. The tiny rudder on a giant ship's rudder that can change the whole vessel's course. Mark: Yes. The moment the construction manager chooses the sustainable material. The moment the parent pauses instead of yelling. The moment we choose to read a book instead of scrolling through outrage. Those are the trim tabs. They feel small, but they are what steer the ship of humanity. Michelle: It’s a really hopeful message. It makes sense why some readers found it deeply inspiring, even if others wanted a more concrete, step-by-step guide. It’s not a manual; it's a manifesto for a mind-shift. Mark: It absolutely is. It's a call to see ourselves not as the final chapter of the story, but as the first page of a very, very long book. Michelle: So, the question Wallach leaves us with is a powerful one. Mark: He asks you to imagine writing a one-sentence note to the future. A piece of wisdom, a wish, a benediction. And then he says, the real work is to go out and live that note. Michelle: What a beautiful, challenging thought to end on. Mark: This is Aibrary, signing off.