At a moment when modern systems feel increasingly unable to meet the crises of our time, how might we choose a different future?
The anticipated new release from the bestselling author of When No Thing Works and Who We Are Becoming Matters
Drawing on Norma Wong’s Hakka Chinese and Native Hawaiian heritage, this lyrical and visionary book offers a radical reset: a return to ancestral wisdom and human connection and an invitation into the long arc of responsibility.
Choosing Humanity challenges the othering that divides us and the digital saturation that keeps us trapped in isolation and urgent busyness. It asks into critical questions for our time: What becomes possible when we slow down enough to listen? To each other, to the land, and to the wisdom of those who came before? How do we inhabit this timeplace with grit, play, and creativity, for the sake of nothing less than our humanity?
From the patient cultivation of a lychee tree to the collective harmony of a Hawaiian song contest, Wong reveals how meaningful change depends not on individual heroes or industrial-scale solutions: it’s built on relationship, deep listening, and shared effort.
As centralized institutions falter, climate collapse accelerates, and AI cannibalizes human creativity, this short, ingenius book is a breath of fresh air. Norma Wong guides us toward enduring pathways rooted in community resilience, from a seven-generation framework that expands our sense of time and responsibility to “relational microgrids”—small, connected communities rooted in aloha, kōkua, and collective action.
As Wong writes in her inimitable voice, Choosing Humanity is a vital invitation to cast “w-a-a-a-y back” so we can leap “w-a-a-a-y forward.” At turns playful, serious, and anchored in the gravity of meeting this moment with care and skill, Wong helps us become good ancestors who care for the land instead of claiming ownership. She guides us to reclaim our human sentience. And she shows us that it’s possible to imagine, build, and live into a future in which we choose each other and the wider world to which we belong.