The 25th annual State of the World thread on The Well has commenced. This is one of my favorite rituals. It can get a little hard on the “catastrophizing,” a little digressive, and it isn’t necessarily the most inclusive… it is what it is, and that is part of what makes it interesting. Not necessarily the be-all end-all on the “state of the world,” just this particular group’s (whoever that happens to be at a given time) sense, as much as they can write it out, as much as you or I might chime in, at that moment.
Much of the opening salvo relates to me, as I imagine it does any who have the privilege or wherewithal to look beyond the trenches they’re fighting in day to day.
I appreciate this especially, so far, from JD Work:
I will note that in any of the serious crisis contingencies that I have been involved in overseas, where everything is coming apart at once, those that made it through all shared common characteristic. ... It was those folks who could rely on their communities, and the networks of relationships they had built and nurtured over time, that endured. Even in the worst times.