The LONG Game

***OHO group members (I'm second from right).***

I recall a time in the 1960’s when my friends and I realized that we were all driven by the need for a cultural shift. We sensed that the future couldn’t remain the same as the present, and we wanted to do something about it. Our questions, and sometimes clumsy answers, sent us on a journey of trying things out, failing magnificently, trying again, and constantly learning. By the intervention of some good fortune, those early experiments, which found their expression in art, are celebrated to this day.

I was recently invited back to Ljubljana, Slovenia, the city where I was born and where I grew up, to attend the premiere of the OHO film - a full-length documentary about a group of young avant-garde artists who worked together between 1966 and 1971. That group was comprised of myself and those same questioning friends. The invitation to the premiere stated: OHO (1965–1971) is considered one of the most interesting, most complex, and most important examples of post-war avant-garde art in Central and Eastern Europe. The group emerged out of the movement and, after a few years of operation, already participated in a high-profile exhibition of conceptual art at New York's MoMA. OHO was not only an art collective but an exceptional multidisciplinary cultural phenomenon that connected visual art, film, literature, poetry, and theory. As early as the 1960s, they raised important questions about anthropocentrism and art itself.

My OHO friends were my first allies. After five plus decades, we are still refining the same ideas. Back then, we got in touch with the “long game” that is STILL being played out. We knew it then, just as I know it now: the work of our time should be to realize a future where we collaborate with nature and people who are different than ourselves. I knew then that I must learn to see differences as gifts and, when it came to our common future, together we always knew more. I determined early on that adhering to rigid ideologies did not lead to collaboration.

Participating in the LONG game is demanding. It requires all to make it work, and only a few to derail it. For me, it began as a youthful intuition that I had to verify through study, numerous conversations with leaders in various fields of change, and, most of all, by immersing myself in work where I tested collaborative principles in real, everyday situations. For me, throwing myself head first into work with communities became my hands-on research.

I am as convinced now as I was 60 years ago that this cultural shift into collaboration is what we need. In fact, I have coined the term ‘collaborative democracy’ to properly reflect the qualities of this need. I’m always surprised to learn of ‘new’ innovations by forward thinking artists, planners and scientists who are wrestling with the same topics my OHO friends and I struggled with in our youth. We warned then, almost 60 years ago, about the deteriorating climate. We experimented with eco-villages and reintegrated timeless Earth-based traditions into the post-industrial mindset. We envisioned an ecological age where small is beautiful, local is honored, and a world where we might voluntarily reduce our impact on the earth, living simpler lives. In this mindset, we hoped to focus on the quality of things and experiences, not their quantity. And we hoped to achieve some small measure of this world by pushing art into everyday life.

In my youthful optimism, I thought that this ecological, art-infused future was inevitable. But we are no closer to it now than we were 60 years ago. What happened? In reflecting on how things went off the rails, I’ve come to some realizations. First, political and commercial leaders know how to distract us and derail change. The status quo, which sees them wield power, is a comfort to our current leaders. Why should they surrender their power and influence? To them, their power and influence are indicators of their intelligence. Their success is proof that their mindset is supreme. They are the important ones. So, why change?

Further, we now have an administration that fights collaboration. To our leaders, collaboration is seen as a weakness. They know best, and there is no need to consult with those who think differently. It is a cult of certainty. Their preferred ideas are the only right ones, they know best, and their choices favor those who think alike while diminishing everyone else. This is utter folly. It is impossible to understand the complexities of an intertwined world from a single perspective. We need each other’s insights and knowledge to give ourselves a chance for a world where both people and nature can thrive. I have been working with this idea since my OHO years and continue to do so to this day.

So, what can each of us do? Take time to articulate to yourself YOUR long game. What is your image of the future? Then look at all your small tasks—how you parent, work, live, travel, and vote—and align those small acts with your image of the future. This is about aligning the SHORT tasks with the LONG game.

Second, invite trusted confidants to hear you out. They will help you bring more clarity to your thoughts, and in return, you will help them. Use friends to help you reflect.

Third, once your thoughts mature and your image of the future becomes clearer, attend public gatherings where governments and businesses discuss the future. Share your vision with others. Bring good questions, show respect, and patiently deconstruct others’ fixed ideas that threaten to derail change.

I place my hope in we, the people, getting centered around the big questions, refusing to become distracted by the constant barrage of propaganda and advertising, and insisting on aligning small daily acts with our visions of the future. This is difficult precisely because it reaches beyond our own wants, or even the wants of those who share our vision, to ask what our world as a whole longs for and requires. But the homework is essential. Nothing less will do.

We grappled with these ideas sixty years ago, and it amazes, and saddens, me that they feel even more radical today. But this is the essence of the long game: keep digging, keep asking, and keep acting in ways that bring the future we imagine a little closer. The long game isn’t about quick wins. It’s about staying with the work, even when the arc feels impossibly long.

The world we want will not appear on its own. It will be built by people who refuse to look away, and who align their smallest acts with their biggest hopes. We can all do this work. And it can start now.

Rebuilding Community, Joyfully