Are We On The Final Crest?
On the eerie feeling of watching civilizations do what civilizations do
The eerie feeling of calm before a storm. Sunshine, yet freezing. Warm on the inside. Cold on the outside.
I sip my coffee.
Wet, slushy snow falls from a tree branch. I hear a light thud.
Everything out my Uncle’s window looks like it’s been dusted with powdered sugar. Morning sunlight filters through the trees. It’s beautiful.
This moment seems so ordinary. A forest hibernating through winter. Nature being nature—timeless.
Yet the news headlines—AI disruption, political authoritarianism, climate destabilization, hegemonic shifts in global order—seem extraordinary.
But are they?
The Ordinary Apocalypse
Perhaps these human matters are also ordinary?
Is this not the same story we’ve been reliving for generations: civilization develops powerful new technologies without the wisdom to wield them properly, and catastrophe or war ensues; empires rise to glory and collapse in vain; totalitarian governments overreach and contract or get overthrown; societies exceed their environmental carrying capacity and dissolve into famine, drought, and anarchy…
The cycle repeats on new land with new leaders and new constitutions—The plotline is the same.
I’m not a doomsdayer. I’m a realist. A tragic optimist.
I don’t know what is to come. But it is hard to watch this moment in history and not think to myself, there’s a pattern here.
Life expands and contracts. Breath rises and falls. Nature summers and winters. Everything decays. Nothing goes up forever.
Yet when our entire society and psychological safety are built on a predictable tomorrow, it’s hard to accept that tomorrow might not be like yesterday, or last year, or the last decade.
It’s hard to believe that everything we’ve come to rely on is fragile, precarious, and unsustainable.
Can we stomach a new reality? One we don’t yet have maps for?
We Were Built for Predictable Tomorrows
Our brains will struggle. Our nervous system wants safe, reliable defaults.
“Predict to control” is the operating system of the ego. Our protective personality thrives on simulating the future based on past data. That data may no longer be relevant.
The mismatch will hurt. It always does. The initial plunge of a rollercoaster is the most jarring.
Even if you were expecting it, even if you could see it coming, even if you warned others to prepare, you cannot prevent the sickness from seizing your body.
Is this what I’m sensing?
The subtle feeling like we’re cresting our final crest.
From here it’s a series of drops.
To where?
For who?
What the Trees Already Know
The trees will remain.
Steady. Resilient. Teachers.
Indifferent? I don’t think so.
Wisely watching the folly of humans.
Maybe they will tell jokes about us. Branches whispering in the wind:
“What’s the sound of human civilization collapsing when no one is around to hear it?”