Spells, Vibes, and Thick Imagination
What We're Noticing About Crossing the Yearning Gap
At the heart of RADAR's 2025 focus is a simple but significant question: how do we build infrastructure that helps people cross from yearning for better futures to actually building them?
Our first exploration of this question took us straight to language itself. What if the words we have access to are part of what keeps potential energy trapped as yearning? What if our existing vocabulary isn't up to the task of bridging that gap?
So we did what curious humans do — we created a space to wonder together. For two months, we've been exploring the limits of language through collective meanders, rabbit holes, and impromptu experiments. First by dropping words entirely, then by creating new ones. Not as a rigorous methodology, but as a way to notice what emerges when we question something as fundamental as how we communicate about what's possible.
What followed was a series of curiosity-led explorations where we followed each other's wonderings, collectively digested what bubbled up, and watched for patterns in the spaces between. Now, we're pausing to gather these emerging threads before our next exploration into Strange Ways & Small Things.
These aren't grand discoveries or breakthrough methodologies — they're pathways forming as we've trampled through unfamiliar territory together. Infrastructural possibilities worth developing further as we build bridges across the yearning gap.
Words as Magic: Rearranging Reality Through Language
The first theme that emerged from our explorations was this idea that words operate as a form of magic. Not in some woo-woo sense, but in the practical reality of how well-arranged language can literally rearrange our perception of what's possible.
This isn't just performative magic — it's belief magic that expands our sense of what's possible, our sense of our own power, and our capacity to move beyond dominant systems that keep us disenchanted. Words can function as spells that crack open reality, turning faintly emerging futures into brighter, bolder openings.
This approach reveals that seemingly fixed structures are just social furniture — arrangements we can question and reconfigure, an insight that bridges directly to our upcoming Strange Ways & Small Things Lab.
The magic of language isn't just in having the right words, but in recognizing that our vocabulary shapes our reality. If our words create our worlds, what becomes possible when we treat language as a material we can shape, rather than a given we must accept?
Looking at ways to harness this magic, we wondered:
What if we leaned into the power of names and found inspiration in ‘naming magic’
What would it mean to practice verbal acupuncture? Where would we find the pressure points?
What if we could bend reality with the right question? Or expand possibilities with an incantation spoken aloud?
The Vibey Space Between: Finding Power in the Latent
Between wordlessness and explicit language lies an extraordinarily rich territory — what we've started calling the "latent space." It's where proverbs live alongside memes, where songs and symbols operate through resonance rather than definition, where feeling outweighs logic.
This latent space isn't just aesthetically interesting — it seems to be where the most powerful bridges across the yearning gap are built. The stickiest carriers of possibility aren't technical papers or detailed blueprints; they're the things that travel easily between people through feeling, bypassing the analytical overthinking that so often blocks movement from yearning to action.
These carriers — whether proverbs, slogans, memes, or something not yet invented — have a special quality: they help us fill the void between what we can explicitly articulate and what we intuitively understand needs to change. They operate on our primal intelligence, creating pathways that make seemingly impossible futures feel within reach.
Exploring this vibey territory, we considered:
How might we use cultural shorthand as a carrier of possibility that bypasses our analytical defenses?
What sensory practices could help people intuitively grasp the outlines of emerging possibilities?
What if we could harness the power of "this tbh" energy — that intuitive recognition that bypasses explicit explanation?
Thick Imagination: From Vague Visions to Buildable Futures
The third pattern might be the most profound: the difference between (to borrow language from Geoff Mulgan) "thin" and "thick" imagination.
Thin imagination stays vague, isolated, and often trapped in yearning. It dreams up futures without pathways, without diverse perspectives questioning its assumptions, without emotional texture. It's conceptually interesting but lacking the infrastructure to become real.
Thick imagination, by contrast, integrates multiple forms of knowing — from diverse human perspectives to more-than-human insights. It emerges through what Adam Mastroianni calls "conversations with lots of doorknobs" – diverse exchanges that challenge our perspectives and create richly layered meaning, rather than just reflecting our own thinking back to us.
Neuroscience tells us we have at least 10-30 variants of word meanings even for common words like "chicken" or "penguin." Thickening our imagination means engaging with this multiplicity, listening deeply, and recognizing that there's depth beneath every surface. It means moving beyond a thin, singular understanding to embrace the rich, sometimes contradictory complexity that makes futures actually buildable.
Because thin visions that remain only visions can't survive in the real world — but neither can practical ideas that lack emotional resonance or philosophical depth. Thick imagination creates both the emotional aura and practical pathways needed to transform abstract yearning into tangible momentum.
In our explorations of thicker imagination, we asked ourselves:
What if we created containers for multiple imaginations to entangle and strengthen each other?
What could facilitating conversation across barriers of time, space, and language unlock?
What might we learn from multiplayer art practices about balancing individual sovereignty and collective imagination?
Building Boats, Finding Tunnels, and Making Skeleton Keys
So what do these threads tell us about crossing the yearning gap? How might they help us build infrastructure for possibility?
The threads point toward three kinds of crossing vehicles we might create:
Everyday language magic that makes the fixed world suddenly feel malleable
If words can operate as spells, what incantations might help people see social structures as movable furniture? What language practices could render seeming laws of nature back into historical arrangements? Consider these our magical boats across previously unnavigable waters.
Some of our early boat designs:
A ‘little free spell box’ that offers magical instructions for local change
Reimagining routine exchanges (like greetings and signatures) as opportunities for perspective shifting
A naming ceremony that imbues shared meaning and status into a place or idea we want to nurture
Intuitive carriers that bypass overthinking
What could we design that travels through resonance rather than just description? How might we create cultural objects that help bridge the yearning gap through feeling rather than just thinking? Think of these more like tunnels through seemingly impossible barriers.
Our tunneling explorations include:
A collection of fables by futurists that bring back story as a transmission vehicle
An IRL yearning lounge that scratches the third place itch
Modern proverbs spread via meme, merch + mural
Fortified bridges that support many crossings
How might we thicken imagination in ways that create paths sturdy enough for communities to cross together? What approaches could make crossing the yearning gap accessible to many, rather than just those who already know the trick? These are a bit like skeleton keys, carved to unlock multiple domains of possibility.
Bridge-building experiments in the making:
A facilitation guide or card deck that prompts groups to try on different viewpoints (ecological, ancestral, child, engineer), with structured protocols for building thicker understanding together
Listening Potlucks: Communal meals where rotating "harvesters" tune into conversation gaps, connecting dots to reveal collective wisdom hiding in plain sight
A ‘possibility thesaurus’ that reveals how different worlds describe the same futures
We're particularly intrigued by the skeleton key metaphor. A skeleton key works by having its serrated edge filed down to its essential form, allowing it to bypass the intricate patterns of various locks. What would language skeleton keys look like—simplified forms that help unlock different domains of possibility? By stripping away unnecessary complexity and focusing on essential principles, these skeleton keys might help us unlock whole systems of possibility rather than just individual doors.
A Special Announcement: From Yearning to Building in Our Own Ecosystem
As we explore bridges across the yearning gap in our labs, we're witnessing a powerful example in our own ecosystem. When we launched RADAR, we rallied around one simple, radical belief: the future belongs to those who think about it. Not the powerful, not the privileged – but any and every one of us who dares to imagine it differently.
What started as a wild idea shared among curious humans has grown into something both more defined and more wonderfully weird than we initially imagined. The RADAR community continues to be our beating heart — that global collective of curious humans united by our founding belief. Led by Head of Practice, Keely Adler, and Head of Imagination, Caitlin Keeley, we're the folks tending the Signal Garden, diving into yearning labs, and running strange experiments to build bridges between today and better tomorrows.
We've always known that when you create the right conditions for possibility, amazing things emerge — from art projects to community initiatives to, yes, even agencies. Which brings us to our exciting news: the RADAR ‘agency’ has officially hatched! Our first venture incubated directly from the community! It brings our unique, grounded, multiplayer approach to futures thinking to organizations with the resources and reach to shape tomorrow at scale.
This evolution embodies everything we've been learning: like our magical boats, the agency helps organizations see fixed futures as malleable; like our tunnels, it creates pathways for community insights to travel into spaces that shape tomorrow; and like our skeleton keys, this partnership between community and agency opens doors neither could access alone.
It's built on everything we've learned together: the most powerful insights come from diverse perspectives, imagination needs infrastructure, and better futures are built in multiplayer mode. That's why we're thrilled to officially welcome our favorite multiplayer maximalist, the brilliant Sarah Owen as ‘agency’ co-founder and Head of Research alongside Alex Eley, Head of Partnerships — together they're bringing RADAR's magic to brands and organizations in ways that complement and strengthen our community work.
The beauty of this evolution? Both parts of RADAR feed and strengthen each other in a delicious feedback loop. The community provides the agency with a living laboratory of signals, patterns, and insights no traditional research department could match. The agency creates opportunities for community members to apply their expertise, connects our thinking to broader systems of change, and helps sustain our infrastructure for possibility.
Sometimes this means facilitating a weird wordless workshop in a Discord voice channel. Sometimes it means helping a global organization reimagine their relationship with emerging technology. It's all part of the same mission — creating the conditions where imagination flourishes and possibility becomes reality.
Speaking of creating those conditions...
From Lab 1 to Lab 2: Strange <> Normal
This is where our next exploration comes in. Starting in May, our Strange Ways & Small Things Lab will explore those moves that work through the cracks—making the familiar strange and finding power in small-scale experiments.
If our first lab was about discovering how language limits or enables change, our second is about putting those insights into practice. How do we use these newfound "skeleton keys" to unlock spaces where small changes can have outsized effects? How do we make the strange approaches we've uncovered feel increasingly normal and accessible?
We'll be thinking about social structures as furniture—assembled one way now, but always capable of being rebuilt. We'll be asking "why do we do it this way?" and quickly following with "what if we tried it like this instead?"
Because ultimately, that's what we've learned about the yearning gap. It's not that better futures are unreachable—it's that the pathways there aren't obvious or well-marked. Sometimes you need to get in a boat. Sometimes you need to find a tunnel. Sometimes you need to craft new keys altogether.
The infrastructure we're building isn't about predicting what futures will emerge—it's about making more futures possible by giving more people access to the tools that help bridge yearning and building.
Wanna come build some boats and tunnels with us? As always, our application portal is open to new members (and our DMs are open if you lost your keys to the server — just reach out to Keels or Caitlin if you need help reconnecting).
A Note on Week of Citizening
As we look ahead to our next lab, we're finding inspiration in the recent #WeekOfCitizening we had the pleasure of supporting – a timely convergence where theory meets practice.
What strikes us is how citizenship, reimagined as a verb rather than a status, functions as its own kind of bridge across the yearning gap. When people discover their collective agency and reimagine how they show up for each other – whether in school boards finding common ground across political differences or in workplaces where colleagues stand up for one another – they're demonstrating exactly what our Yearning Labs explore: ways of moving from yearning to building.
These stories of "moving at the speed of trust" and finding power in small, neighborly actions align perfectly with our upcoming Strange Ways & Small Things Lab. They remind us that transformation happens not through grand initiatives, but through connections people make when they discover shared purpose.
Jon and Baratunde are just two of the dozens of kindred spirits we've discovered — proof that reimagining how we show up for each other isn't just possible, it's already happening. We're grateful to be part of this growing network of curious humans finding bridges across the yearning gap, relationship by relationship, commitment by commitment.
This update captures both our latest insights from RADAR's 2025 Yearning Labs and our exciting ecosystem evolution. Apply to the community to join us for Strange Ways & Small Things beginning in May, where we'll experiment with making the familiar strange and finding power in tiny interventions—and keep an eye out for opportunities to collaborate with our newly hatched agency!
The time for words will soon be over.
Love it ! Very inspiring