How the Old World fights to stay alive, and why it's our call to emerge
Finding hope in the places power fights hardest to preserve.
In many of the fantasy stories I love, there’s a moment when the world begins to shift…
When change arrives like a gust of wind, quiet at first, but growing stronger, until it can no longer be ignored.
At first, the change is subtle:
a sign,
a symbol,
whispers of a new age,
a shift in power.
And then, the rise of something that could alter the course of history.
As this change grows stronger, so does the backlash; the desperate, clawing pushback from those whose power is tethered to the fading order.
This opposition is fierce.
It’s as if the very fabric of reality is being torn apart.
Think of forces of darkness rallying against the light, old powers desperately trying to maintain control, the status quo rallying against the inevitable tide of progress…
Or more like Sauron's forces gathering as the Fellowship forms;
The White Witch's endless winter intensifying just as Aslan returns;
The deepening brutality of the Hunger Games as revolution brews beneath the surface;
Agent Smith, once confined to a single form, suddenly multiplies exponentially when Neo begins to believe.
And the characters caught in the midst of it feel the weight of this opposition. It shakes them to their core, threatens to undo everything they’ve ever known.
And yet… It is in this very clash, in this discomfort, in this struggle... that’s where the true transformation begins.
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I’ve always been drawn to this theme: the greatest shifts, the most meaningful changes, are often met with the fiercest opposition.
It’s not just in fictional worlds where this happens.
In our own lives, in our societies, in the world at large, we encounter resistance when change is on the horizon.
When Change Knocks
As I sit here writing in the blue hour of evening, I reflect on the state of our world:
Political pendulums swinging backward after decades of forward motion;
the sounds of conflict in distant lands;
the earth itself showing signs of distress.
I feel the weight of these moments profoundly.
These are turbulent times.
Like many of us navigating these currents, I've experienced the fear, the exhaustion, the uncertainty that accompanies such profound global challenges.
But in this turbulence, something else stirs within me… a thought that’s been growing louder, the more I witness the resistance, the conflict, the discomfort around me/us:
Nature's Wisdom: Friction as a Force
When caught in reflection, I turn to nature for wisdom.
I consider the seed which must push through the soil, facing the opposition of soil and rock. The earthen pressure that seems to imprison it is precisely what calls forth its becoming.
Friction can be the very alchemy of creation, the necessary fire for transformation.
Without it, the river would never sing against the stones.
Without wind to struggle against, the oak would never grow strong.
Without the pressure of the cocoon, the butterfly would never fly.
Without it, there can be no passage from what is to what might yet be.
But nature also shows us when friction destroys rather than transforms.
Like when invasive species encounter new ecosystems without evolved resistance, the friction doesn't lead to beautiful adaptation but to collapse.
Nature's wisdom shows both creative and destructive friction.
Philosophical Insights
This wisdom from nature finds profound echoes in philosophical thought.
I find myself returning to Hegel's dialectic. In his framework, the thesis (existing social order) contains internal contradictions that give rise to its antithesis (forces challenging that order). The resulting struggle doesn't simply replace one with the other but generates a synthesis that both preserves and transforms elements of each.
Consider the Women's Suffrage Movement. The thesis (democracy excluding women) contained its contradiction—universal rights denied to half the population. This generated its antithesis: demands for inclusion. The resulting synthesis transformed democracy, preserving representation while revolutionizing citizenship.
In the United States, fiercest opposition to the movement arose as victory approached (1912-1917), with unprecedented violence and propaganda signaling the movement had reached its tipping point.
In these historical moments, we witness Hegel's insight made manifest:
The louder the opposition, the more profound the shift taking place beneath the visible surface of society.
The old order does not rage against what is ineffectual; it marshals its full force against what truly threatens to transform it.
This pattern mirrors what healers recognize as the "healing crisis" or the homeopathic aggravation: When symptoms intensify not because the treatment is failing, but because the body has begun its deepest work of reorganization.
Hegel helps us understand the dynamics of change, but to explain why powerful systems can resist transformation I think of Antonio Gramsci writing from his prison cell… his body confined while his mind explored why revolutions fail. His theory of cultural hegemony explains how dominant social orders maintain power not just through violence but through control of cultural and intellectual life.
This subtle form of dominance convinces people that current arrangements are natural, inevitable, and unchangeable…
𖤓 𝙸 𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚔 𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚎 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎:
When movements challenge not just policies but these deeper assumptions about what's possible, backlash intensifies specifically because the foundations of power are threatened.
This explains why climate activism faced relatively mild opposition for decades while remaining marginal, but encountered coordinated resistance precisely when it began effectively challenging the cultural hegemony of extractive capitalism—questioning not just specific policies but the fundamental assumption that endless growth and consumption are natural and inevitable. --Or why Greta Thunberg’s voice was challenged after she made those connections as well. --
The friction between what is and what could be creates tension in our social fabric.
As activist Tarana Burke noted during the fierce backlash against the #MeToo movement, "As bad as it looks, as hard as this moment is, we are in it because we're winning." This isn't wishful thinking but recognition that resistance intensifies specifically when transformation becomes inevitable.
Yet, like in nature, we must acknowledge that friction sometimes destroys rather than transforms. Historical movements have faced backlash that succeeded in reversing progress for generations.
The pattern I'm describing isn't a guarantee of success but a framework for understanding the meaning of intensified opposition.
The Personal and the Political: Embodying resistance without burning out
It's essential to recognize, as I have learned through cycles of engagement and exhaustion, that this perspective on friction requires an active practice of awareness.
This engagement shouldn't come at the cost of our well-being.
I have witnessed too many fellow activists, teachers, and healers who, in their passion to transform systems, have sacrificed themselves entirely.
If we burn out, if we exhaust ourselves to the point of collapse, we hand victory back to the very systems we're working to transform.
Burnout isn’t merely personal tragedy but political consequence.
This makes me ask (once again, if you’ve read any of my other writing) crucial questions:
Who benefits when we feel powerless?
Whose interests are served when we succumb to the belief that the world's problems are too vast, too complex, too overwhelming?
The answer is clear:
When we believe we cannot change anything, we become passive observers rather than active participants… precisely the state that preserves existing power structures.
This dance between personal transformation and collective change requires us to understand their interconnection. How do our individual journeys of embracing friction translate to systemic transformation?
I know now that the boundary between personal and political is more permeable than we imagine.
When we individually develop capacity to stay present with discomfort rather than flee it, we cultivate precisely the skills needed for collective movements to persist through difficulty—especially when resistance intensifies as change becomes more inevitable.
The personal practices that help us navigate our own resistance to change become political resources when brought into shared spaces of struggle.
𖤓 𝙸 𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚔 𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚎 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎:
Yet this raises another vital question:
How do we maintain faith in transformation without slipping into either naive optimism or numbing despair, especially when opposition becomes most fierce?
This balance feels especially precarious in times when collapse and possibility seem equally imminent.
I've found that hope is more than emotion to be cultivated, but a practice to be embodied: what philosopher Jonathan Lear calls "radical hope," a commitment to possibility even when we cannot clearly imagine what form it might take.
This is not the shallow optimism that denies suffering (!), nor the cynicism that refuses possibility, but a third path that recognizes that the strongest backlash often comes precisely when transformation is most imminent.
This radical hope isn't passive waiting—it's an active stance.
Stepping into the story: actions for transformation
How, then, do we practically embrace friction as fertile ground for change, especially when it intensifies as transformation becomes inevitable?
Transforming our relationship with discomfort from avoidance to productive engagement by:
Reframing intensifying opposition as confirmation that change is becoming unstoppable, using resistance as a map showing where to focus.
Building collective resilience through community support systems that anticipate and prepare for the fiercest resistance that precedes breakthrough.
Cultivating adaptive persistence by approaching intensified resistance as a threshold crossing rather than a signal to retreat.
Developing specific practices for escalating discomfort: body awareness, threshold recognition, stronger containers, and channeling resistance energy into creative action.
Navigating power differentials strategically by recognizing peak resistance as potential tipping points, shifting tactics and building coalitions precisely when opposition intensifies.
𖤓 𝚆𝚎 𝚍𝚒𝚐 𝚍𝚎𝚎𝚙𝚎𝚛 𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚜𝚎 𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚐𝚒𝚎𝚜 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚎 𝚒𝚗 𝚖𝚢 𝚢𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚢 𝚁𝚘𝚘𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝙸𝚖𝚙𝚊𝚌𝚝 𝚌𝚒𝚛𝚌𝚕𝚎. 𝙸𝚏 𝚒𝚝 𝚌𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚜 𝚢𝚘𝚞, 𝚏𝚒𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚙𝚘𝚛𝚝𝚊𝚕 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚓𝚘𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚚𝚞𝚎𝚜𝚝 𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎:
So the friction we experience now (in our personal metamorphosis, in movements for justice, in the great turning of our global systems) is not an aberration to be transcended or avoided.
It can be the fertile, dark soil in which seeds of future possibility take root and from which new life emerges.
By embracing this we can recognize ourselves as part of a movement across time that has been unfolding since the first beings questioned unjust order, a lineage that will continue to shape the world long after our individual flames have returned to the stars.
And here we return to the wisdom encoded in stories --for what are Hegel's dialectic, Gramsci's hegemony, and Lear's radical hope if not sophisticated expressions of the same truth found in those fantasy novels that have accompanied my journey? In both, we find ourselves in a moment when the old world and the new exist simultaneously, overlapping like translucent pages.
The forces invested in maintaining what has been rally against the inevitable emergence of what must be.
We feel this clash not just around us but within us: the tension between fear and possibility, between comfort and transformation, between the voice that says "this is how it's always been" and the one that whispers "another world is possible."
I know though that the discomfort is real.
I feel it in my body as I write these words, as I witness the unfolding crises of our time.
And I know too that the opposition is thunderous: legislatures passing laws to criminalize protest, corporations funding climate denial, and the subtle ways we ourselves cling to familiar patterns.
𝙰𝚗𝚍 𝚜𝚘 𝚠𝚎 𝚛𝚎𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚗 𝚝𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚐𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚠𝚒𝚗𝚍.
𝙽𝚘 𝚕𝚘𝚗𝚐𝚎𝚛 𝚓𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚊 𝚠𝚑𝚒𝚜𝚙𝚎𝚛, 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚊 𝚐𝚊𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚖.
Just like in the fantasy stories that help shape my understanding of the world, we find ourselves standing at the threshold of a profound shift.
The
oldworld (the one defined by fear, consumption, and control) rages against the forces of change, clawing to preserve its grip. But it is not the battle itself that we must fear, but the stillness that would allow the old world to remain unchanged.
I'm not saying we must all become that fearless hero who challenges everything while enduring unimaginable hardship.
I'm saying that when we feel like everything is lost—
when the weight of despair settles in our bones,
when rage burns behind our eyes,
when worry threads itself through every thought,
when we seek to numb ourselves from the pain that seems endless—
Remember this truth, like those quiet moments in stories when all seems lost: The backlash roars loudest when change has sunk its roots deep enough to threaten the foundations.
Yes, not all pain leads to growth. Not all opposition signals breakthrough.
Yet when systems fight hardest to preserve themselves, when power structures lash out with unexpected force, when the status quo deploys its full arsenal
—it reveals what they most fear losing.
In these moments of collective disorientation, we're not called to ignore nor glorify the suffering, but to recognize what it illuminates: the precise points where change threatens what seems immovable.
i can't explain how much i learn through your essays - you really have me taking physical notes on a notepad !! i've been thinking a lot about the notion of the "decline of the western empire." i watched a super thought-provoking youtube video on it by 'uncivilized' where they explore the tell tale signs of a crumbling empire as it relates to history. but there was a part of me that questioned whether it was perhaps an overly idealistic notion than a possibility. this essay has really helped me reframe and confront my own niggling pessimism, while also reminding me of the work left to do. thank you for this beautiful piece of writing - i always look forward to your work !! xx
This was so beautifully written and nuanced. I took so many screenshots of parts of the text to keep in moments of lost hope.
Thank you so much for your inspiration, it truly means a lot.