Work as if you live in the early days of a better world

I just finished reading Semiosis, a novel by Sue Burke, which follows the story of a group of humans colonizing a new planet over the first 100 years. It reads a lot like The Martian — science and survival — but replace The Martian‘s solitude and desolation with community and competition.

It’s a deeply hopeful book about the prospects for the flourishing of sentient and intelligent life. The quote in the title of this post is not from Sue Burke, but it resonates for me as an attitude that, if held, is likely to make our present and future moments better.