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Holding on Together / Amy K's avatar

I resonate with what you wrote about here. I have been eager to find others who want to discuss, rather abstractly, what a new order could look like (because I think that's what's needed). Much of this "in between" that you wrote about (and seemed somewhat unsure of how to define it in words) is merely what I see as "transition." We are in a transitional phase, one in which old models are no longer serving us and are now collapsing. I have plans to write about this in my blog soon. A big aspect of this collapse is that we need new types of leaders when we rebuild, which would result in a new type of leadership model. We can't just use old models because they are no longer appropriate for our modern society--plus, they are being destroyed too completely, making it too difficult if not impossible to change things back to how they were if Trump disappears.

In terms of new leadership and creation of a new structure, I sense that females, artists and introverts will play a big role here. But most people don't think this far ahead about society, nor do they sense these changes on an intuitive level. That is why I'm excited to read your post. Please let me know if you are part of any blog or groups that focus on what you wrote in your post.

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Terry Cooke-Davies's avatar

Thank you, Jonathan, for this textured musing. I find myself both resonating with and troubled by the phrase “a time between worlds”—not because I doubt the analysis behind it (as you rightly note, Zak Stein’s grounding is robust), but because of the subtle grandiosity the phrase can carry when spoken aloud, especially in public or strategic contexts.

There’s something about it that feels a bit too… cinematic. As if modernity is already halfway buried and we’re all standing around waiting for the new protagonist to emerge. But perhaps modernity isn’t ending—it’s composting. And composting isn’t linear, nor is it photogenic. It’s slow, messy, and full of rot and life at the same time.

This is where I’ve found Vanessa Machado de Oliveira’s work—Hospicing Modernity and Outgrowing Modernity—especially useful. She doesn’t frame this moment as a clean exit from one paradigm into another, but as a deeply relational and metabolic process: one of sitting with grief, with complicity, and with what she calls “the dis-ease of separability.” Modernity may not be ending like a novel; it may be dying like a body, and we are midwifing and mourning it at the same time.

So rather than asking whether we’re between worlds, I’ve been wondering:

• What are we metabolizing, and what’s metabolizing us?

• What rhythms are ending in us, whether or not modernity ends around us?

• What does it mean to stay with the compost heap, rather than escape into transcendence?

I’m deeply grateful that you’re asking these questions in public. They need tending, not just answering.

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