No time for sorrow... but time to work together

Dave Donnelly.

I don’t do predictions, as a rule. Predictions make you sad.

Think about every time you got annoyed or disappointed: you thought things were going to be one way, and then they weren’t. You had some kind of expectation about the future, consciously or innately, and then the rug was pulled out from underneath your feet.

I tend to go with a radical agnosticism most of the time. It’s a trick I learned the hard way in 2010 when I had to spend four weeks in a children’s intensive care unit, watching my then-baby daughter struggle her way through some of her heart surgeries. (She’s ok now, btw!) In those intense moments, all I could do was pay attention, keep my eyes and ears open, and make good decisions if and when they arose. The future has a real knack of looking after itself when the present is bearing down on you like a ton of bricks.

So I’ve kept that approach: I don’t know what will happen, and I’ll deal with whatever comes. Sure, it’s a rollercoaster of sorts, but it’s also a pragmatic response to constant change.

However, that makes this here piece tricky to compose, as I’ve been asked to write my thoughts on how I see Digital Inclusion panning out in 2025. Frankly, I don’t see it panning out in one way or another. Whatever happens will happen.

What I do have is hope, always.

I don’t hope for this thing or the other happening, I don’t plan for a certain state of affairs somehow manifesting, but I know that nothing positive will occur without devoted people putting in the hours towards it. When there’s no money, dwindling energy and a rising sense of desperation, hope is what gets you through.

I think hope gets a bad rap, if I’m honest, as a dewy-eyed foolishness that lacks realism. I’m more into the ‘dragged through the mire, battle weary and undeterred’ kind of hope, the kind that’s knackered, frustrated and has zero intention of ever giving up.? Without that, we’re lost. We keep plugging away at home, in our communities, at life because otherwise we’d just curl into a ball and doom-scroll our social media hellscape.

Look, things might well be rubbish in the future. There will certainly be hurdles and challenges - that’s realistic. But things have been rubbish in the past and in many ways are rubbish now. Crisis is everyday! I don’t truly get the despondency people express when they see something like a Trump re-election, or protestors being demonised while arms companies thrive, or climate talks fizzling to nothing. Those things are obviously bad, but when people tell me they feel down about this stuff, I think the fresh worry in them comes from a usurped expectation, a rug pulled asunder. In other words, prediction.

I’m absolutely not trying to invalidate people’s stresses. In the ICU ward, I wasn’t scorning worried families at the bedside! But I do think people could have a better time in the present, and be more prepared for the future, if it wasn’t such a perpetual disappointment. So in our current context I’d respond that millions upon millions of folk were already having a hard time before now, and they still are. We had work to do yesterday; we have work to do today. The challenge hasn’t changed, because it never really does. It’s just taken on a different shape, as it does each day.

Or as William Blake put it: “The busy bee has no time for sorrow.” We have much to accomplish.

Hope is important to me because without it, my radical agnosticism would just be a shoulder-shrugging apathy. “What does the future hold? Pfft, I don’t know. We’ll see, I guess.” If we answer that question with hope, with a hard-won smile on our faces and wide eyes shining, it becomes: “I don’t know! Let’s see.” We’re granted space, autonomy, agency, options.

And alongside hope, I hope I’ve shown that I also have faith. Faith in people to look after each other, to build and sustain communities and to resist the forces of darkness. Faith that I’m going to get up tomorrow morning and try something. Faith that you will, too.

So in place of the good, the bad and the ugly, I choose faith, hope and… love? Sorry, too obvious. Never predict!

Instead, I’m going for solidarity. It’s a word that feels like it’s having a comeback, and that’s not entirely good news because it implies hardship and the need to stand together against something. Well, we are where we are. The choice between apathy and solidarity is no choice at all.

Contrary to the neoliberal, dog-eat-dog myth, people will support each other in tough times. This has been documented time and again in evidence from disaster situations, ranging from hurricane Katrina to far-flung floods and earthquakes. We are hardwired for mutual aid and cooperation.

What the heck does that mean for digital inclusion though?

It means that I don’t anticipate X, Y or Z happening, but I’m warmed by the fires of hope. At Mhor, we’re not going anywhere and will keep showing up wherever we can to build, or advocate for, change.

It means I have faith in the countless people - professionals, volunteers, community members - who have an innate drive to make things better. Faith in their ethical compass and faith that they will hold onto their hope, too.

And it means that I have hope and faith in the fact that solidarity will be alive and well this year, in whatever form that takes. Digital inclusion, at its best, has always been a force for righteous social change that challenges inequality and brings people closer. I think those moral undertones are going to get louder and louder as we broadcast the positives that inclusion can bring and amplify the injustices that will always come with exclusion. It might get a bit more shouty? I am well and truly up for getting shouty. Many voices make more noise.

So here comes the rest of 2025. I’ve saved you a seat on the rollercoaster - strap yourself in! Just remember to pay attention, keep your eyes and ears open, and make good decisions.?

Hope, faith and solidarity demand it...