This morning, the first day of 2050, I woke to the gentle glow of natural sunlight streaming in the windows of my sustainable, eco-friendly home. Following my global meditation session in virtual Nepal, I’m serenely savoring a nutritious breakfast entirely sourced from my own mini-eco-farm, while I watch a family of hummingbirds frolicking in my garden. In this world of oneness and unity, every day is an opportunity to live in alignment with our highest values and to co-create a more just, equitable, and sustainable world for all. I am feeling immensely grateful to be alive and healthy to experience this near utopia.
It’s hard to believe that I came close to dying almost 50 years ago. I had been enjoying a fulfilling life as an award-winning children’s book author, speaker, and teacher, when my pleasant world came crashing down out of the blue. Quite literally. A huge bird of prey dove from the sky and crashed into the back of my head, knocking me unconscious. The Emergency Room doctor said that the traumatic brain injury I had experienced was similar to being struck by a wrecking ball, and he assured me that I was lucky to be alive. But I didn’t feel lucky. His prognosis was that my brain could take 30 years to heal. Enduring pain, deep depression, and anxiety are common for head injury victims, but as an author, my worst consequence was the loss of my desire and ability to write.
I have always believed that people are moved to change by two forces: the creative impulse and personal incentive. I was determined to write again, yet it took me nearly 20 years to heal my brain enough to produce more books. This time around, it was both incentive and creative impulse that inspired me to action. A Silicon Valley company was starting a children’s book publishing division, and a call went out to published children’s authors to compete for the privilege of being the company’s first author. I put all I had into that book, wrote about what I loved (in this case, animals), and my book was chosen. This was followed by other socially relevant books — about children around the world and how they are alike and different, and about teaching children that they can be anything they want to be.
Then in 2024, I wrote the book I was born to write.
In that tumultuous time, 26 years ago, the world was grappling with the consequences of our detrimental actions (and inactions). Climate change, inequality, war, and despair seemed to be the defining features of our existence. One night, moved by the creative impulse and by the incentive to save the world, the compelling idea for a new book came to me in an enlightening, lucid dream. It was a book for people of all ages and all nations, a book that would inspire wonder and possibility, igniting people’s imaginations and planting the seeds of hope in their hearts.
When my author and illustrator friends heard I was writing again, they offered me their full support, and I asked them to join me in the adventure. Together, driven by a fervent desire for change, we created and published ALL ONE, a book that embodied empathy, cooperation, and the interconnectedness of all life, and which set in motion a chain of events that would reshape the very fabric of human society.
To our great delight, our heartfelt creation sprouted wings and flew to the far corners of the world on the jet stream of social media, becoming a viral sensation. In a stroke of luck, ALL ONE found its way into the hands of a global icon, Taylor Swift, whose influence extended far and wide. Moved by the message of the book, Swift was inspired to compose and lend her voice to a song that echoed its themes of hope, unity, and stewardship of the Earth. Her powerful voice swept the globe, sparking a fire in the hearts of millions — a fire that would ignite a compassionate revolution of change.
Funded from the sale of the book, the ALL ONE Foundation was created. Its mission was to support the realization of the ideas in the book, and to provide the impetus to bring people together to stimulate change. Working with renowned changemaker Suzanne Taylor, the foundation produced an eye-opening, ground-breaking film, causing ripples of change to spread around the world.
The film became a catalyst to inspire globally thinking leaders of corporations, governments, and communities to see the bigger picture, and to take action. They created institutional ads to promote sustainability, compassion, and collective responsibility. Scriptwriters wrote storylines for their movies that subtly urged people to work together for the greater good. Slowly but surely, greed and materialism were giving way to a newfound sense of altruism, as people began to recognize the inherent value of every living being and the wisdom of protecting our planet for future generations.
Although we were encouraged by the success of the book, song, and film, we needed to find a creative way to accelerate the process of change, to incentivize people to evolve in a natural, but more rapid fashion. After much brainstorming, we created the ALL WIN Quest, an immersive virtual-reality massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). We invited players around the globe to embark on a transformative journey to save the world while learning the profound truth of oneness. The game was set in a richly detailed and expanding virtual world, where players collaborated, explored, and overcame challenges together through a series of epic quests, forging bonds of unity and understanding as they played.
The virtual world was filled with diverse landscapes, cities, and ecosystems to explore. Players teamed up and worked together to overcome obstacles or solve problems, such as battling an environmental disaster, mediating a conflict, or saving an endangered bird. Each quest was designed to teach valuable lessons about cooperation, empathy, and the interconnectedness of all beings.
As time went on, the ALL WIN platform developed more and more real-world impact. Sponsors made it possible for players working in the virtual world to see physical results in the real world. For example, a quest to restore a virtual world ecosystem would inspire real-world action in a Louisiana bayou ecosystem. Meditation techniques learned in the virtual world (like my morning meditation session in virtual Nepal) translated into real world stress reduction. Planting a virtual tree in the virtual jungle sponsored an actual tree planting in South America.
We built in plenty of opportunities for use of the creative impulse and incentives. Not only was the game a fun learning experience, players earned Oneness Points for successful completion of each quest, including bonus points for cooperation, compassion, and altruism. The points could be redeemed for virtual and real-world items from the gaming sponsors. Players were motivated to achieve more and more oneness as they participated. What better way to affect change than to create a better world for all, in which all win along the way.
Perhaps the most profound transformation was the shift in consciousness that took place. Players became used to working with people of all ages, genders, races, and interests across the world, fostering a sense of global community.
No longer driven solely by self-interest, we came to see ourselves as part of a greater whole — a global community bound together by a shared sense of purpose and interconnectedness. Instead of competing against one another, we worked together, recognizing our common humanity, and that our individual well-being depended on the collective well-being of us all.
Which brings us to where we are today. On this first day of 2050, I realize with awe and gratitude that I now live in the vibrant world of my dream. Outside my window, Mama hummingbird is buzzing to and fro, feeding her babies. Birds, once terrifying to me following my head injury, are now a passion of mine. The gift of the COVID years for me was that I became an avid observer of birds online (especially birds of prey). As I watched them all — sleek peregrine falcons, adorable snowy owls, majestic eagles — I began to see why Emily Dickinson wrote, “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul.”
The seeds of hope that were planted in our hearts by a simple book back in 2024 have sprouted, flourished, flowered, and born fruit in the shape of a song, a film, and a game, and we are now reaping their harvest in this new world of unity. The road ahead is still long and uncertain, but with love as our guide and cooperation as our strength, I know we will continue to move forward into an ever brighter future. We truly are becoming all one. And when we are ALL ONE, we ALL WIN!
I wrote this essay for Suzanne’s How We Saved the World contest to showcase the power of creativity as it relates to change. We are fortunate that our modern world makes it possible to facilitate change in a multitude of engaging ways. Some of the catalysts of change through creativity I explore in my essay are books, songs, films, celebrity influencers, foundations, virtual reality games, and the viral aspect of social media. Also, part of my intent was to encourage people to evolve in natural, fun, educational ways, and to inspire them to explore the healing power of nature.
On a personal note, as a traumatic brain injury survivor, it has taken me many years to be able to write creatively again, and this contest became a worthwhile challenge on my healing journey.
Your story really works, although when I read it I thought the brain injury was stretching things and then lo and behold, like a Hollywood movie that doesn’t seem far fetched when you know it’s a recreation, it really happened to you. Everything that followed I could see really happening , with thanks for putting me in that chain. This essay should be widely read for the inspirations in it for what could occur — and for anyone who knows Taylro Swift to get it to her.