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Over the past days, we have seen how the world is organized through conceptions, attractors, emergence, and collective shifts. How old patterns lose their power, and how new ones always grow when the old ones no longer carry.
Today, we will talk about something many people feel uneasy about: collapse.
For many, this word sounds dramatic. As if “everything” is about to fall apart. As if it is about chaos, violence, and destruction. But in the way we use it here, collapse means something else, and something more precise.
Collapse is what happens when structures that no longer function can no longer be kept artificially alive.
This applies to the economy, politics, institutions, forms of work, lifestyles – and also personal life strategies. When a system becomes too complex, too heavy, too disconnected from human needs and natural limits, it will sooner or later lose its carrying capacity. Then it must be simplified, transformed, or abandoned.
This is not a moral process.
It is a structural one.
Studies such as Limits to Growth and experiments like Universe 25 already showed decades ago that systems break down when they exceed their own limits. When resource use, pace, and complexity grow beyond what a system can integrate, instability arises. First slowly, then rapidly.
What we are seeing in the world today is not random decay. It is many systems reaching such limits at the same time.
When this happens, the first reaction is to try to save the old.
More regulation. More debt. More control. More speed. More pressure.
Just as we saw with attractors.
But when this no longer works, dissolution begins.
It may look dramatic from the outside.
But from the inside, it is often a relief.
Think of a life that has become too constricted.
A job that no longer feels meaningful.
A relationship that has become rigid.
A role you no longer fit into.
When it finally breaks down, it is painful. But it is also liberating. Because the energy that went into keeping something artificially alive is suddenly released.
The same applies to societies.
Collapse does not mean that everything disappears.
It means that what no longer works stops dominating.
The old loses power.
The new gains space.
This is a transition from complexity to precision.
From bloated systems to functional structures.
From abstract solutions to concrete communities.
In the midst of this, there are always two parallel movements:
Something falls.
Something is built.
Some lose security.
Others find it.
Some cling to the old.
Others begin to experiment with the new.
That is why such periods often feel both dark and hopeful at the same time.
The crucial thing to understand is this:
Collapse is not failure.
It is correction.
It is experience saying:
“This no longer works.”
And then it reorganizes itself.
In our time, this is happening on many levels at once: economy, energy, environmental conditions, mental health, work, politics, and technology. That is why the pace feels high and the pressure strong. Many old solutions no longer work, while new ones are not yet fully established.
This creates unrest.
But it also creates space.
For those who manage to orient themselves, simplify, and choose what actually works, this phase can feel liberating. Less noise. Less coercion. More closeness. More responsibility. More reality.
Not as an idyll.
As a transition.
A necessary addition
Many will still feel that a question presses forward here:
Won’t this hurt? Won’t we experience violence, hunger, loneliness, hopelessness, war – and for many, death?
The honest answer is: Yes, for some this transition will be painful. And at the same time: no, it does not mean that “everything” is heading toward catastrophe.
Historically, all major transition phases have included periods of scarcity, unrest, conflict, and loss of life. Not because the world is “evil,” but because old supply, trust, and protection systems break down before new ones are fully in place. When structures collapse faster than people can adapt, suffering arises.
But such phases never affect everyone equally. They are always uneven and fragmented. Some places are hit hard. Others find new forms of stability more quickly. Some societies collapse deeply. Others reorganize early. There is never one global fate that strikes everyone in the same way.
It is also important to understand that people often suffer most when meaning and community collapse before the physical frameworks do. When people do not understand what is happening, see no way forward, and lose trust and belonging, hopelessness, violence, and apathy grow. That is why understanding and orientation are not luxuries – they are forms of protection.
Suffering is not “the meaning” of transition. It arises primarily where people lack support, cooperation, and local communities. Where people manage to share resources, take responsibility together, remain flexible, and maintain trust, the transition becomes much gentler. Where people cling, polarize, and refuse to adapt, it becomes harsher.
We already see both tracks in our time. At the same time as we see war, psychological strain, ecological stress, and political unrest, we also see new forms of cooperation, local organization, sharing, community, and innovation. The new always grows while the old is falling.
On a personal level, this does not mean that one can “think oneself away” from reality. But it does mean that the more oriented, relational, flexible, and grounded one is, the greater the chance of getting through the transition without being crushed by it. Building real relationships, reducing dependence on fragile systems, being able to live more simply, and helping others – this is not escape. It is adaptation.
The deepest point is this: Keeping systems alive that are already dead leads to more violence and more suffering over a longer time. Transformation is often shorter and harder than long-term decay. Decay is slow and cruel.
We are in transformation.
Next time, we will look at how people throughout history have tried to imagine such transitions – and why visions like Utopia were not naïve dreams, but structural responses to collapse.
Question:
Is there something in your life that you know no longer works – but that you are still holding on to?
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