The Power to Save

Wishes for the new year 2026

Waves crashing into the rock at Quiberon.

It has been my reassuring belief for the past twenty or so years, inspired by the poet Hölderlin, that the worst is never certain, and that as danger increases, so does also the power to save. 

At the dawn of this year 2026, that quote no longer seems sufficient even though it remains true. 

Now that the worst seems so highly probable, almost like a programmed trajectory, I cannot avoid asking how that realization should change the way we live now. 

“The worst”, I should clarify, refers to a whole spectrum of scenarios for civilizational collapse and massive destruction, resulting in untold hardship and suffering for the vast majority of the world’s inhabitants. 

Is there anything, honestly, that we can do to avoid the worst? 

The first thing we can do is to wake up and stop pretending it’s just going to get better somehow. 

Second, we can align our daily choices with the world we want to see emerge. We can share those choices with others who may choose to emulate.

The “power to save” need not be messianic; rather, it can be a potential tipping point when a quarter of the world’s population changes its consumption habits over a short period of time. Or maybe a decisive moment when 10 million people suddenly swell up, en masse, in peaceful but clearly targeted protest,  which no authority can override. If we ask what such tipping points might look like, even recent AI analyses converge on a few striking conclusions.

Finally, if the worst does occur, is there anything we should do to prepare for it? I don’t mean stocking food in a nuclear bunker. I mean preparedness of mind. Even though the body can experience pain, suffering largely arises from how the mind interprets experience. We suffer to the extent that we designate an experience to be terrible. 

If the entire system we have brought into being, and on which we have come to depend, were to collapse, all would not be lost. We might even say that the most important things of all would remain.

Seeds of beauty and love would be dispersed, and new gardens would grow.

Rather than fearing the worst, perhaps we should ask ourselves these questions:

What do we most cherish in life? 

What is most worth preserving?

For what are we most grateful? 

The questions are so simple in their formulation, but how simple is our reply?

Do you observe, as I do, that most of your time is spent elsewhere? Why do we sabotage ourselves in this way?

We should not start off any new year, and not even a new day, without this clarity. Is this not the key to living joyfully through the worst of times? 

The course of the world is not within our individual power, but we remain sovereign over our own states of mind. To exercise this sovereignty more powerfully is my wish to all, starting with myself, for this new year.