The previous chapter envisioned, conceptually, what a psychology-informed progressive society might look like. In this chapter, following the tradition of literary utopias, I want to take this description one step further by switching in to a narrative, fictional account of what it might be like to experience such a world. This chapter feels risky: I am not a fictional writer, and this is the first time I have included an entirely fictional section in any of my books. But I wanted to give as concrete and vivid as possible a sense of what that better world might look like – and feel like: How it might really be to be in this world. Because it is one thing to conceptualise a progressive utopia of creativity, relatedness, and care; and another to really explicate how people might actually live and coexist in such a world. This is particularly in the face of some of the fundamental psychological, social, and environmental challenges of existence. We cannot, for instance, always get our needs and wants met; we do not always get on with others; and we have to find ways of living within our environmental limits. What is more, if people are fundamentally directional, how do you create a world in which people can strive and struggle for things – with the potential for disappointment as well as achievement and success – while at the same time coexisting together in a safe, secure, and generally pleasurable way?

What follows, then, is a narrative account of how the principles laid out in the previous chapter of this book – and throughout it – might play out in practice. The focus is particularly on a world in which people are able to realise their creative and relational directions, with the skills to communicate honestly, warmly, and effectively with each other – and their world. As with the literary utopia genre, I have also used this narrative format to flesh out, in more detail, what the philosophy and principles of a psychology-informed progressive utopia might be. To emphasise, this is an entirely personal vision: I showed a draft of this chapter to one of my elder sisters, for instance, and she said she envisioned a progressive utopia entirely differently – a lot less drugs and a lot more vegetable allotments! But see what you think.