A year-end reflection: change and navigating the in-between

This year my reading list has been heavy with books about change, crisis, and the feeling the whole world is teetering on a knife’s edge that seems to have no end (when was 2019 again?).

The quote that’s stuck with me comes from Antonio Gramsci in his Prison Notebooks:

"The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear."

That’s what it feels like, that we’re in the interregnum, the in-between. The rate of change in the world feels like it's accelerating because every change changes the underlying reality it's working on. In the past major changes happened at such longer intervals that reality felt 'fixed' at some points, but every day we wake now with the most certain thing being that the world has changed again from yesterday. This feeling comes mostly from change being recursive.

Change is recursive, when you change a part of a system the parameters you originally used to decide what actions to take themselves change, requiring you to build your plan anew and select a slightly modified path to create the desired effect. Taking this to be true is challenging for many of us since it's simpler to lock in assumptions for a system when making choices, and is especially for longer range planning. The whole measure, assess, plan cycle tends to be left by the wayside as it’s time consuming, and depending on the change we mean to create, especially when parameters move unexpectedly, can be challenging on an ideological, emotional, or philosophical level.

The cliche, it's likely to get worse before it gets better, is likely true for the the foreseeable future. In this moment then, I find it pertinent to find a way to navigate this in-between and to manage the recursive nature of change at home, work, and in our larger social groups.

While it might seem a depressing note to end the year in, I find it important to acknowledge what’s in front of us to be able to act. I’m left in action, not in panic, by looking at what the rugged terrain to be navigated in front of us is instead of pretending the our broader context won't affect us. After all, all of our plan are subsumed into our larger environment and are and will be subject to how it changes around us.

What am I taking into 2025 to make sure something new comes into existence?

• The old is dying; creating my own sense of urgency -> First of course is to acknowledge where I’ve missed the mark. I find it helpful to not just look at my own gaps (e.g. what was my plan for 2024 vs. results) but also take a look more broadly at where we’ve missed the mark collectively, in my family, my social groups, and also more broadly across the world. Some books I’ve read that have helped are tagged below with the second part.
• The in-between; put a structure to be committed but not attached -> This has been a lesson I’ve been learning over and over and something that keeps me in action for what I want to create, but also to looking anew at what needs to change without getting taken out. The contrast in being committed vs. being attached is that when we’re attached, if we don’t achieve that specific outcome in that specific way we tend to make ourselves be wrong or a failure, or not being enough. Being committed but not attached means that you are working to achieve your goal but acknowledge that it might not look the way you intended to and that it doesn’t reflect on who you are that things did not come out the exact way you wrote it down.
• Something new is born; don’t go at it alone -> Clichés are there for a reason, so here’s another: if you want to go fast go alone, if you want to go far go together. I think specially in this moment, where we are likely to be stuck in the in-between for an indefinite period, it’s important to not go at it alone. Two reasons stand out for me. First, we’re more likely to achieve our goals if we build a coalition for support around ourselves. The second is that many of the important changes we might want to achieve at home, at work, or in the larger world affect others. Current western social paradigms seek to convince us that we are an island and if we hustle hard enough, we can bend the world around us to our will. Going into 2025 I’m actively inverting this belief, we are in it together, like it or not, and my actions always impact those around me. In 2025 I’m looking to bring more people along and build change together.

I hope in 2025 you bring what you're up to into the world, and navigate the in-between succesfully.

Resources

Books:

• Against Progress – Slavoj Zizek
• Doppelganger: A Trip Into The Mirror World – Naomi Klein
• The Fire Next Time – James Baldwin
• The Revolt Against Humanity: Imagining A Future Without Us – Adam Kirsch
• Ages Of Discord: A Structural-Demographic Analysis of American History – Peter Turchin

For work: If you want to explore how to apply any of this at work specifically a great place to start is of course Kotter's change framework, although I am a big believer in lateral thinking so I'd encourage getting immersed in the broader world above.

• The 8 Steps For Leading Change – John Kotter