Hi friend,

Lately there's a palpable thickness to the air, as if reality itself is holding its breath. You can almost hear the cosmic gears grinding, ready to click into a new configuration. The present moment feels stretched taut like a rubber band about to snap, launching us into an irrevocably altered future.

It's a tangible feeling that I've experienced only a handful of times in my life: the eve of the 2016 and 2020 American elections, waiting for my mom's test results before her official diagnosis, the upcoming 2024 American elections, and now - France's National Legislative Elections.

I'm suspended in this moment of time with a hyper-awareness that very soon the world I'm living in now will be changed forever. On Monday morning, I'll wake up in a different France.

If you're a multi-verse geek like me, you'll know this feeling: we're at a critical juncture, about to be wrenched into a specific timeline. It's like I'm standing on a glass floor, watching the hairline fractures spread beneath my feet, and there's nothing to do but wait for it to shatter, to fall into a world both familiar and fundamentally changed. I'm aware, with crystalline clarity, that we're witnessing the hinge of history, the pivot point where everything tilts.

This our reality, and we must all adapt and evolve to meet it.

The Turning of History (1997):

** Disclaimer: I'm not saying the below is a definitive framework. Howe and Strauss make a lot of causal assumptions, and I always hesitate at models that take such a fatalistic approach to society, but I found it interesting to consider and examine. Please treat the following content as an invitation to explore these ideas and not an endorsement of their explicit validity. **

In 1997 William Strauss and Neil Howe wrote a book called The Fourth Turning, which posited that historical events are cyclical, following patterns that repeat every 80-100 years, with each phase (or turning) lasting around two decades:

The First Turning - Rebirth: A period of strengthening institutions and weakening individualism, a new order arises. (Post-WW2, the US becomes confident and powerful)

The Second Turning - Awakening: A turbulent era when the new order comes under attack. (1960s - 1980s, an increase in personal liberation and increasing disorder)

The Third Turning - Unraveling - Strengthening individualism and weakening institutions as the order decays. (Regan 1980s optimism - post-9/11 war exhaustion)

The Fourth Turning - Crisis - Values change and another civic order moves in. The authors predicted that the 2010s-2020s would be a period of crisis that would last until the 2030s. (In hindsight, we can now say it started with 2008 Financial Crisis, The rise of Donald Trump, and Authoritarian Populism)

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The Fourth Turning is Here (2023)

In 2023, Neil Howe released a follow-up book titled "The Fourth Turning is Here: What The Seasons of History Tell Us About How and When This Crisis Will End." (Strauss passed away in 2008).

In the follow-up, Howe further developed his initial theory, expanding on the idea that each Turning was linked to a season (Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter). He believes the fourth turning is always driven by the new social attitudes that challenge the status-quo, in this case moving from hyper-individualism into models that are pushing for a more collective approach and predicts this phase will last until around 2033.

I'd like to believe this theory is valid, because lately its felt more like a dead-end street than cycle that could lead us to better days ahead. I want to borrow Howe's optimism that we've been at the brink before, and we'll make it through again, but there will be a huge cost.

The point is, if you've been feeling like everything is unraveling, you're not crazy. It IS unraveling, and apparently, right on schedule.

Upsides:

We're collectively experiencing an awakening that has many people realizing how systems of oppression and exploitation connect us all. The Pandemic forced us to grapple with our unhealthy relationship with work. For many, the war in the Middle East was an opportunity to see how conflicts around the world are funded, supported, and enabled by our tax dollars. We're seeing how the way forward requires community and collective care. As climate change becomes increasingly disastrous, we're finally seeing the urgency of needing to adapt.

These truths have been uncomfortable and painful for many of us. But we must confront them head on - we have no choice.

Downsides:

Empires in decline are always at their most brutal. We've seen this again and again. When there's a shift in the status quo, there's always a rise in police brutality, repressive laws, and authoritarianism.

It's unsurprising that many rightwing political parties around the world are focused on immigration, security, and pushing a narrative of "returning to better times." The rolling back of civil liberties in the US and rising anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe are all indicators of this trend.

The truth is that late stage capitalism is failing more and more people. Cost of living is skyrocketing. People can't afford houses. Wages haven't kept up with inflation. Instead of blaming corporate greed, we scapegoat whatever minority happens to be convenient.

American writer Ijeoma Oluo wrote a powerful newsletter about this moment in time, capturing the chaos and crisis perfectly:

To my American friends, Project 2025 is a road map by organizations that planning to deliberately dismantle American democracy. No country can afford to take their democracy for granted.

In France, there's growing rhetoric against "Français du Papier" (French on Paper) - people like me - who were granted citizenship but were not born in France and are not ethnically French.

Even being born in France isn't good enough. If you're not ethnically French, rightwing politicians don't consider you French either.

Sound horrifyingly familiar?

The last Fourth Turning was the Second World War, where estimates place the death toll at 75 million people.

And here we are again, with Nazis at our doorsteps.

It's going to be messy. And most likely violent.

And that's not even accounting for the disruptions that will be coming thanks to climate change. More droughts, more crop failures, more shortages, more floods, more hurricanes, more migration, more conflict.

Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

Are We Ready for What's Coming?

I don't know.

That's what I'm trying to figure out. We're all sufficiently briefed on the conditions that await us, what actions can we take?

Ijeoma was generous enough to share her own survival list here, which includes strengthening community connections, setting boundaries around trauma consumptions, and building robust information networks to combat the rising censorship.

For me, I'm focused on doing everything I can within my own zone of influence and control. I'm putting together a strategy for how to practically and tangibly move through this next phase, which I'll share in a later dispatch, so stay tuned.

I'm making peace with the fact that this is what we're going to be facing. Unpredictability. Volatility. Uncertainty. We can either resist (tried that it doesn't work), or we can surrender to the truth of this present moment and find ways to move forward as best we can.

We have to update our skillsets and our mental models. We have to reassess where we are putting our time, attention, and money. We might have to rethink where we live or what we do for work. There's a new world on the way, and we need to prepare.

In this excellent essay, Roman Krznaric (author of History for Tomorrow: Inspiration from the Past for the Future of Humanity) writes about the conditions required for human beings to turn moments of crisis into opportunities of transformative change: A crisis, social movements, and new visionary ideas to inspire people forward. He writes:

We're not without hope. We're not without options. We're not without choices. There's lots to do, and no one can do it alone.

Let's face this upcoming Turning together.