Thread by @AlexSteffen

Billions of us are about to go thru a fierce shock of temporal dislocation — of waking up to realize we've been swept up in a vast, heartless discontinuity, one that has been accelerating for years, one we've either ignored or imagined happening sometime in someone else's future.

The cultural, political and psychological impacts of this dislocation are beyond calculation.

I've spent a lot of time studying history, in graduate school and since. I believe there is no analog.

I find that deeply concerning.

I find our unreadiness for it totally terrifying.

I wish it were clearer to me where and how the practices of desperate societal-scale triage and of loving kindness meet.

Of course, the most dangerous foolishness now is believing we have more responsibility than we do for the crisis we're in.

"You can't stop what's coming. It ain't all waiting on you. That's vanity"

Still, decency and self-respect demand that we take our turn on the fire line.

I've been working this line for 30 years, now.

And I was taught by old-timers.

Nobody gets to say they couldn't possibly have seen this coming.

The real kicker, tho, is that we have the powers we need to steer into discontinuity and make of it something amazing.

We're prevented from seeing that by all those who benefit from delay or who demand change happen only as they desire it.

So the world burns.

"Eppur si muove."

I believe I am now obliged by law to mention that I have a newsletter, and that if any of this stuff is important to you, you're gonna wanna sign up.

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