These days its understandable to be worried about the future. Isn't everyone? Instability leads to anxiety which fuel outbursts on the individual and societal level. Recycled air feels treacherous as crowds search for firm ground to stand on.

From that position comes forth many proposals for ways out of the current situation. Usually these ideas arrive linked to some "motivation" but their spokesperson(s) lack the experience or vision to convert ideas into felt experience. In the wild, success demands precision – anything less doesn't survive.

Now, precision shouldn't be conflated with risk aversion or inability to experiment. Rather its a focus on always moving with purpose, towards the known or unknown. A commitment to face the world with curiosity and agency, without leaving things up for grabs unless you want to.

Randomness isn't random

Nothing has to be random if you dont want it to. There's always another dot to connect. Reaching for dots is risky since the search for order and meaning in a place where none exists can lead to personal "off-centering" that can lead to dark or void places.

However, sometimes you find yourself in need of that link, or any link. Some reason to believe you have ability to change things and the world isn't as nihilistic as it may appear. Being a nihilist is as much of a choice as anything else. Do you choose meaning? Or do you reject it?

Be the first person

For no specific reason I ended up grabbing the image above from an article about Prince of Persia, a video game I played growing up. Like many other video games, it featured a main character who you navigated through a series of harder and more complex tasks in pursuit of a sometimes nebulous, sometimes defined "goal."

I dont mean to say you should live your life more like a video game, but I do want to call out that one of the few things you can actually decide for yourself is what your goals are, and what you want to do to achieve them. Whether or not they are realistic, or there exists forces conspiring against you is a separate question. The real breakthrough from this line of thinking comes from understanding that if you are not telling your story, someone else will gladly tell it for you. What do you want to do?