Fungi and Humans: Becoming Mycelial in 2040

Hey, what's up Mycelial Friends! 

Hi, I'm Ryan, and is a newsletter about mycelium, mushrooms, and all things fungi. Each newsletter features stories about mycology, climate resilience, and personal mushroom writing and/or graphic novel panels from me.

Mushrooms touch every aspect of our society from politics to science to pop culture to the more than human world. The more I learn about fungi, the deeper and more connected my life becomes. 

If you like this newsletter share it with a myco-friend or subscribe! You can also find my upcoming Nerv podcast on Spotify, YouTube, and iTunes!

I am working on a new graphic novel story: Rocky Mountain Mycelium. This webcomic a follow-up to Parking Lot Fungi, that I shared in August.

Back to the Future: Becoming Mycelial in 2040

I went to the future for this week’s article, writing a speech from the year 2040.

I used to give talks at places like Google around Authentic Storytelling, and in 2040 I am giving talks about how humans became more resilient by partnering with the mycelial network. Here’s one of my videos from my tech days.

I am participating in a fellowship called Learning for Action from the education group Terra.Do. I first wrote a version of this speech as an assignment in our curriculum.

I added four comic panels from Rocky Mountain Fungi within the speech. 😃

My Speech From 2024: Humans Have Become More Mycelial

Hello everyone! Welcome to the golden era of healing!

War is over. Love is here. Capitalism has been dissolved. We human beings grew into our destined natural role of working with plants, fungi, and the entire planet. We finally woke up, grew up, and built symbiotic partnerships with the rest of the natural living world!

I am so happy to be back to teach you all about what we have done in the last 15 years on Earth together. We finally can reflect on all the collective effort that we put in together. 

As our favorite author and elder Robin Wall Kimmerrer says:

“As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us.”

And the Earth certainly healed us!

[Cheers]

In 2040, we humans are an extension of the mycelial network. We tapped into the root-like structures of fungi called mycelium, to gain a broader intelligence. We are no longer driven by power, money, and prestige. Capitalism was an illusion of the mind, a sickness, and an unnatural way to live. We let that go!

No longer outside observers, we human beings are active participants in the ecology of Mother Earth. The planet's ecosystems of animals, fungi, and plants had been cheering on us humans, hoping that we would learn to care for the planet. On the brink of the 6th mass extinction, we learned interdependence, joining forces with all planetary species.

How did it happen? Fungi had spent centuries training us homo sapien apes to become more fungal, and less destructive. The fungi tricked us into thinking that we cultivated fungi when in reality, the fungi had been cultivating us. Like a doctor examining a patient on the exam table, the fungi had been studying the humans, hoping to cultivate us as a loving and peaceful species. They waited for us humans to grow into our role of Earth's caretaker, which we finally did. And it was simple, we chose love, and the rest fell into place. 

The world has largely resolved any conflict, and we have the natural world to thank. Our nervous systems were hijacked by fear. And through hard work, we reclaimed our bodies. Our company Nerv became one of many groups to accelerate human and fungal partnerships, which worked to restore the balance of nature on Earth. We learned to help the fungi do their jobs, as decomposers. The fungi taught us, and we are grateful!

We finally woke up! 

[Cheers and thunderous applause]

To get here, we learned A LOT from our fungal friends.

We worked with fungi to remediate soil to clean up pollution, ridding the planet of toxins such as heavy metals and lead. We also worked to sequester carbon through plant relationships with mycorrhizal fungi. We helped fungi to decompose billions of pounds of plastic. The fungi even trained us to decompose rubber from the millions of cars on the planet. We are grateful!

[Cheers and applause]

Humans no longer see themselves as individuals. Like the fungi, we are part of networks, just like the mycelial network. We learned to work with the natural world to create new systems, practicing biomimicry and replicating nature, creating a more decentralized web of life. We stopped burning fossils for fuel, we became carbon neutral, and our urban centers partnered with nature and technology to symbiotically form an entirely new and beautiful ecosystem.

We followed the lead of indigenous people, caring for the land. Learning to practice regenerative farming, we returned to a gift economy. People learned to help one another to regain health and prevent disease. We now give people gifts rather than charge people money! 

We learned a lot to get here. We listened to the urgent call from scientists, helping to tell stories about why human beings were a global threat, and what we could do to help. As CO2 emissions rose, we finally changed our behaviors. 

It took the great Los Angeles fires of 2025 to wake up the city of L.A., the state of California, and finally the continent of North America. We stopped looking for governments and corporations to save us and learned to save ourselves, becoming climate resilient.

Following the guidance of one of our human leaders, Chip Fletcher, we prioritized interdependence and working together as humans. We transitioned into a more sustainable world, focusing on social equity, public health, housing, food, and climate preparedness. 

Some of our major social accomplishes have been:

• Dissolving the largest polluter on the planet, the United States military
  • Turning the U.S. military into a climate core of planetary health
• Dissolving the police, prisons, and jails
  • Turning these institutions into local climate cores and healing centers
• Reorganizing our society around climate health and safety
  • Providing free health care across the world
  • Providing free food, water, and access to the World Wide Web, globally

We are on the path to cutting down global emissions to zero. Yes, you heard that right, zero! We are on track to cut down global greenhouse gases to help restore the natural order. We listened to our elders, our teachers, and mentors - the fungi. 

Yes, this entire time, the fungi were waiting for us all to learn from their vast intelligence, honesty, and spirituality. Our human ancestors also guided us to this new era of healing, helping humans to reconnect to our spiritual guides after centuries of colonialism and displacement.

We learned a new identity. We let go of our collective human privilege. We learned to collectively grieve. We learned to take care of one another. We learned to love.

[Cheers]

We studied the words of Robin Will Kimmerer to no longer suffer from a "state of isolation and disconnection “species loneliness”—a deep, unnamed sadness stemming from estrangement from the rest of Creation, from the loss of relationship.”

We learned to play together with the rest of the living world.

We did this together. We love you all and are grateful for your work. 

[Cheers and applause]