Ad:
Casting Call Spells
for Undiscovered Talent
with the Courage to Explore
We grant Equal Access
Exposure and Practice
You define your role
Ever wonder what you’d become under the best conditions?
While writing this poem, I went down the idea exploration rabbit hole, imagining what happens when a society widens access so people are given space to explore, practice, and re/define themselves.
Rather than circumstances deciding who they are, where they belong, or which demands they must supply, we let exposure reveal what talent becomes, and what it can sustain.
I also started thinking about the complications, incentives or unintended consequences of that world. Some could be like the Cobra Effect, where systems create perverse outcomes from “good” initial intentions, or Black Swans, where the consequences are simply unpredictable.
You cannot plan for unknown unknowns, and while they won’t announce themselves, they do distort the system just enough for you to notice, if you’re paying attention.
Better still, through pre-mortems, you could build a less complex, more resilient system where you don’t have to rely on prediction; designing for buffers (time, money, capacity), optionality (multiple paths forward), decentralization (no one point of failure), and fast feedback loops will make it easier to adapt quickly.
Sorry about that. Removing my PM risk management hat and getting back to world building…
If everyone is free to find and use their talent, might some ignore it, preferring to do something they find more appealing? Would we find people clustering around the same roles, thereby avoiding other kinds of work? At one point, the Divergent franchise came to mind.
So, a poem that started as an ad or an invitation from a world where basic security makes self-actualization possible, the more I thought about it, the less simple it seemed. This doesn’t mean we throw out the idea; it means it requires further exploration with more heads in the game and, of course, our willingness to change.
And at the same time, I kept returning to the idea that, even if most people gravitate to the same types of “roles,” suggesting that some roles are more appealing than others (why? Good question.), but that brought me back to universal income as part of self-actualization.
Let’s run this through.
Say 50% of the population find their natural talents but decide to ignore them because they all want to be stand-up comedians. (lol. That’s the first thing that came to mind.)
Economic realities would step in. Also, factors like audience response, effort, discipline, and personal fit all serve as filters. Even if your universal income is all you need. There might not be an incentive for you to continue as a comedian because you’re not that funny, so people stop showing up for your events.
Maybe you want to become the next Michael Phelps, you’ve got everything you need, including an Olympic-sized pool at your disposal, but you realize you don’t want to put in all that work, practicing several hours per day. You’d rather play Roblox or Counter-Strike 2 with your friends.
Hence, equal access and exposure will not only reveal talent but also individual preferences for what one is or is not willing to do to realize their full talent and play out that “role” in the world.
Beneath the poem, and in my head, there is a tension between freedom as a gift or a burden and sorting. A world that offers equal access and open possibilities still leaves room for feedback, differentiation, and unintended consequences.
Finally, while I imagine a society that does not define people in advance, but gives them the opportunity to find out for themselves, I cannot imagine all the possible outcomes. Can we ever? But that doesn’t mean such a society isn’t worth the risk of trying; we build for the unknowns, and as they arise, they won’t wholly disrupt the system.
I know I won’t get to do anything strategic in a corporate environment, even though it’s something I’ve always loved and my mind naturally leans that way.
I also love thinking and exploring ideas through reading, research, and then imagining something new, but I know I won’t fit into an academic environment either, because I’d be limited in what I could explore. The institution might not be willing to go where the idea takes me.
But it doesn’t matter anymore because I get to do it here, on my blog, through poetry, article rebuttals, photography, thought experiments, graphic satire, long-form pieces, and however else I may express that love of strategy and ideas in the future.
With exposure, who knows what else I will find to love. For all of that, I am grateful.
Who knows, maybe my other talent is woodworking; hopefully, I will have the space for all the tools I’ll need to fulfill that one. 😍
Well! What started as a response to a prompt, became something else. Thank you, Sammi!
Feature image by Dall-e
© 2026 Ociola Samantha Williams. All Rights Reserved.
