2023: The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible

It is a lot closer than it seems. On a superficial level, it might look like the world situation is worsening in every way. And through 2023 it will probably continue to do so. War, poverty, inequality, ecological breakdown, crime, sickness, addiction, and other forms of misery will not subside, not yet, not outwardly. They may even grow— like a soap bubble, expanding in volume even as its membrane thins. Then one day it pops, and a tiny drop of soapy water falls to the ground. So big a structure from such little substance.

The core of the old story is hollowing out. The most fervent ideologues of power harbor secret doubts. The jailers yearn for liberation. The wealthy seek relief from their poverty. The powerful cry for deliverance from their helplessness. The comfortable sabotage their orderly arrangements. The warlike and violent pray secretly for their fear to lift. The void beneath the power, the wealth, the control, the comfort grows intolerable.