– If only Utopia was as real to us as the Unicorn! –
The Unicorn, the Elephant and Utopia!
One used to say “Bachelors’ wives and maidens’ children are well taught” or (in Dutch) “The best helmsmen stand on shore”, sayings to express that the watchers always know better than the doers.
We are probably all familiar with those “small talks” on the “big probs” in the world. In no time everybody dumps all headliners they came across on the table and pedantically explain what goes wrong and right (but mainly wrong) in the world. Or during a sports game, all spectators always know what should, could or would have been best. We do and see it everywhere. This common phenomenon is perhaps best portrait with South Park’s character Captain Hindsight and his dogs Shoulda, Coulda and Woulda. If you don’t know it, just watch it, I think it’s hilarious!
Sometimes people just like to complain for the complaining but often people really believe they know-it-all and will explain what to do to make a better world. But whether it be change, money, power, justice, rules, no rules or or you name it, it mostly comes down to rather narrowly defined or even selfish suggestions which ignore the other 99.999% of the people, issues, interests and world.
Now (for a change) place those know-it-all persons in the seat of your president or prime minister and let them solve 10 challenges / issues far out of their comfort, knowledge and interest zone. My guess is that they either don’t have elaborate answers anymore or just pour out superficial gibberish which are all but valid nor sustainable. It makes you realize that in society everything is interlinked, 
including the topics which one finds boring and unimportant.
In fact, it will prove that it is pretty tough to envision a perfect society for all, and one that nobody has ever seen before. And I mean really never ever before, a Unicorn we have at least seen in the movies and we pretty much have a common agreement how they look like. But there hasn’t been an image nor movie which illustrates an Utopia we can all agree on. If only Utopia was as real to us as the Unicorn!
In reality it is just really a handful of visionaries, intellectuals, creatives or call them Don Quixote’s who see the fun in conceptualizing a perfect place for all that takes into account all possible issues and challenges. Moreover, this minority of optimists might claim they have seen or at least imagine how that unicorn (called “utopia”) looks like. But than again, that’s probably just the incomplete perspective of a bunch of dreamers. It comes a bit down to the ancient Indian story of the blind men describing how 
an elephant looks like by each touching a different part of it. They all perceive one part, they clearly and truthfully describe what they sense, logically they all disagree and ultimately their descriptions are all far from the bigger picture.
Probably we have already come across utopia but our desire for betterment for and from our own perspective blinds us from seeing the bigger picture. Perhaps, for now – being in the blind, it is not even about accurately describing the elephant nor the unicorn, but more importantly that we know that whatever it is we (try to) describe is “kind” and “good” to people, nature and the planet. After all we know elephants, unicorns and utopias are well-intended creatures and quite the opposite of devious monsters with bad intentions.
In other words, we all sense a part of the bigger picture we might not understand. So let’s not try nor pretend to hold the truth about the reality of what Utopia entails. Moreover, let’s stay away from projecting or worse enforcing a defined religion, reality, way-of-life or call it utopia on others. If we are positive and optimistic and believe in a some kind of perfect future world, the bottom-line is that we have to be aware that we all sense just a part of something enormous. Something that above all connects us and is loving, caring and empowering everybody!
And even though we can only sense a part of the whole, for the utopia aficionado’s among us, we might at least expand this part this part and learn from past, present and future utopias. In that case utopianalysis might be a helpful resource to enlarge your view on the bigger picture…