How the World Got Better imagines a brighter future

By Zach Hagadone
Reader Staff

Greg Flint wants to ask you a question. Better yet, he wants you to ask a question — not only of others but, perhaps most importantly, yourself: “How would you like this world to be?”

That question is the gist of his book, How the World Got Better, published this fall and set for a book launch celebration Saturday, Oct. 15 from 6-9 p.m. at Evans Brothers Coffee Roasters, featuring music by Truck Mills and Ali Maverick Thomas.

Regular readers of letters to the editor in local newspapers may already be familiar with Flint’s big question, which he has expressed in the past as, “Here we all are, 8 billion people trying to survive global ‘civilization’ that’s killing our planet — a civilization much of which nobody likes. This certainly begs the question: What would we like?”

While Flint’s question has indeed spread, including to Spokane Public Radio, which recorded an author-read audiobook version, How the World Got Better casts it through the lens of a children’s book, opening in “the not-too-distant future” as a young girl sits around the campfire with her great-grandparents. The elders then tell her the story of how humanity progressed beyond a long period of division, violence, corruption and environmental destruction to a state of human connection, fulfillment and shared purpose.

“You know how fishing line gets all tangled up if you’re not careful? … Well, human affairs were like that,” the great-grandfather, “Goompa,” tells his great-granddaughter Lil’, whose name is short for “Little Story.” 

“What could have been so simple and clear and good, we had tangled into a vast ugly knot, big as the world and impossibly tight,” Goompa continues. “Many heroic people tried to free this bit or that or even untangle the whole thing, but it seemed hopeless… and then…”

Goompa goes on to explain to Lil’ how widespread dissatisfaction with the way of the world led to mass protests, but, “uniting against something wasn’t enough to cut the knot. Also, our thinking was still so full of us versus them, and that wouldn’t cut it, either. Really, us versus them thinking was the knot.”

That’s where the question came in: “How would we LIKE this world to be? We finally asked! We listened to each other, and what we heard cut through the knot like a magic sword.”

Goompa says people realized they have much more in common than not, and, “There are no ‘sides’ on a circle.”

Flint’s message is a deceptively simple one, which rests on the notion that, “What we believe, we can achieve. And we can only believe what we can first imagine.” 

The longtime, well-known Sandpointian is an “artist, stonemason and working man,” as he describes himself in the book, and also an active participant in local African drumming. Flint’s daughter, Claire Flint Last, is a Eugene, Ore.-based artist and graphic designer for Luminare Press, which published How the World Got Better. Last also filled the book with her rich illustrations, drawing on a range of styles and textures — some expressing deep-hued, contemplative scenes; others with a splashy, energetic pastel flair; and still others in a loose, winsome pencil.

The writing is well paced and structured, not only for kids but for reading aloud by adults, and comes in at about 50 pages of illustrations and large font, making it a more than manageable bedtime story.

Books by nature are meant to be shared, but more so in Flint’s case, as he invites individuals to share the question — and their answers to it — by visiting facebook.com/onequestionfortheworld. There are also two flyers at the back of How the World Got Better, which can be cut out and shared with others to introduce them to the concept: “What if, right about now, every human soul were to answer one little question it seems we’ve never considered?” 

Additional flyers may also be downloaded — and copies of the book purchased — from howtheworldgotbetter.com.