Reasons To Be Cheerful, the online magazine founded by Talking Heads frontman David Byrne, has launched “Now Anything Is Possible,” a new series of essays focusing on “changes that have long seemed out of reach, but now, amid the coronavirus outbreak, are happening fast — and how we can make them stick.” The new series comes as quarantined people everywhere are in increasingly dire need of reasons to be cheerful.
As countries around the world scramble to mitigate the impact of the virus on nearly every system—from healthcare and housing to transit and industry—changes that once seemed like pipe dreams are being implemented seemingly overnight. Goals that have felt out of reach for decades are suddenly being achieved, making our economies greener, our cities saner, our justice systems fairer and our societies more cooperative. The stories included in “Now Anything Is Possible,” will cover the widespread implementation of universal basic income, the decarceration of jails, the reconfiguration of our urban spaces and more. As journalist Mitch Anderson writes in the introduction to “Now Anything Is Possible,” as these changes gain momentum, “it will be difficult to put the toothpaste back in the tube.”
The series offers a glimpse of what governments, institutions and communities can achieve in this new era and examines how the policies being enacted today can outlast this crisis, and move us toward a kinder, fairer, and more just society. David Byrne recently touched on many of these topics in an essay entitled, “The World Is Changing — So Can We“, which ran in full on Reasons to Be Cheerful and in a condensed form in The Wall Street Journal.
“This is a catalyzing moment and many of the changes that have been made or contemplated are going to be permanent –– some of those are good, and some deeply questionable,” David Byrne notes in a press release. “We at Reasons to be Cheerful of course want to know: how can we keep the good stuff? Who is doing it (it’s already happening) and how those ideas and initiatives are working out?” Watch a teaser video for the series below:
#NowAnythingIsPossible Teaser Video
Head to Reasons to Be Cheerful to read the first installment of the series and follow them on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram to keep up with new entries.