We’re Starting Tomorrow. Want to Come Along?

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    You know that feeling you get when you can’t sleep at 2am and you vow that tomorrow – tomorrow – that will be the day you solve it all and get everything back on track? You go to sleep happy and resolved. And then when tomorrow becomes today you come home from work watch 9 episodes of Parks and Rec instead.

    Start Tomorrow is that tiny space in all our minds.

    The conventional wisdom is that it’s impossible to predict the future – a fact we’re all more acutely aware of than ever as I write in the immediate aftermath of the 2016 US Presidential election. But it isn’t actually true. Everyday we all have the power to build our own future. If I leave the dishes in the sink, Future Me is going to be disappointed when he comes home from work. If I don’t do enough to speak up or take action when I see minorities and other persecuted groups under attack, Future Me might wake up one day 30 years from now and not recognize his country.

    Start Tomorrow, then, is both about our generation’s ambition and drive to build a better future, and an acknowledgment that we’re all-too-often lulled into complacency by Netflix and Xbox.

    In slightly (OK – significantly) less obtuse terms, Start Tomorrow is a website that publishes essays and other writing about politics, media, science, personal observations, and in all likelihood a wide variety of considerably more frivolous topics. 

    It’s (for now) a non-commercial project created and maintained by me, Justin Davis. By day I’m a features writer and editor covering video games and pop culture. But I have a lot to say about a lot of things, and other people I like and respect have things to say, too. And that’s what Start Tomorrow is all about.

    It’s important you know that, because the first of my three core tenants for this project is…

    All writing is personal writing

    People care about who is behind the words they read, and what their agenda is. Transparency is currency. We now need fact checkers for our fact checkers, to ensure they remain agenda-free. Start Tomorrow’s opinion essays don’t use the royal “We,” and won’t have a style guide. Everything here came from a real person, and that person has baked-in biases we should embrace and understand, not attempt to expunge.

    The world and its inhabitants are nuanced and complicated

    There are no easy answers. Everything is connected. We all must do what’s in our power to kill soundbite culture.

    Everything is interesting

    Our world is an almost impossibly dense, vibrant place. And as if that wasn’t enough, our own minds continue inward, infinitely. A few things I think are pretty interesting and wish I knew more about: Bugs, the new American dream, why we’re all willing to give up our personal privacy, catacombs beneath European cities, what student loan debt is going to do to us, why a third party has just never worked, what it’s like being a first generation American, caves, what the constant barrage of advertising is doing to our psyche… and so, so much more.

    My ambition is for Start Tomorrow to house thoughtful writing on all of these topics. (Except for maybe bugs). And hopefully inform, challenge, and entertain you along the way.

    We don’t need to look to the stars or elected officials or anything else to decide our fate. Through informed debate, curiosity, and old-fashioned ambition, we can start tomorrow ourselves.

    7 COMMENTS

    1. Very impressed by this movement. I hope that this improves some of our lives by allowing people to see positive ideas towards bettering our society, whether big or small. I intend do to my part as well. Much respect.

    2. Justin this is an amazing project. I’ve always enjoyed your stance on the industry at IGN and I’m very interested to see what interesting topics and features this produces!

    3. Definitely interested to see more. I like it when people stand up for something, whether it be a good thing or something they believe is an injustice. I always strive to stand up for honesty. Good people with good intentions can always disagree, but it’s in this that we learn from others and actually improve our own opinions. Even form new ones. Very excited to be part of this.

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