The Recognition

Something feels 'off' .. but what is it?

On Losing The Plot

Something shifted in the last few years. You felt it, even if you couldn't name it.

Maybe it started as a whisper of unease while watching the news. Or a moment of disconnect when everyone around you seemed to be arguing about things that felt somehow beside the point. A sense that the conversations happening in public bore little resemblance to what you were experiencing in private.

If any of this sounds familiar, you're not imagining it.

"If you're reading this because something feels off … if the world no longer makes sense, and the stories in the news don't match your lived experience … then this book is for you."

The feeling isn't random. It's not a personal failing or a sign that you're not keeping up. It's recognition trying to break through.

Recognition of what, exactly? That's harder to pin down. But it has something to do with the gap between what we're told is happening and what we can see with our own eyes. Between the official story and the lived story.

"Perhaps you recognise this surface tension of a deeper reality trying to reach you through the noise. Changing what you think might relieve it, for a while. But changing how you think might fix it permanently, and that is the intent behind this book: It's a decoding tool. It won't tell you what to believe, but it might help you see the structures behind the confusion, and when you see clearly, even for a moment, the dissonance lifts, 'as above' re-aligns with 'so below' and the ground under your feet begins to feel real again."

The noise is everywhere now. Competing narratives, endless analysis, urgent bulletins about crises that somehow never quite resolve. And beneath all of it, something quieter trying to get your attention.

Something that sounds suspiciously like your own voice, asking questions that feel dangerous to ask out loud.

"The new heresy is not propagating falsehoods, it's talking honestly; and in this climate, it's clarity that will get you burned at the stake."

Which might explain why so many people have stopped talking honestly. Why conversations feel scripted. Why pointing out obvious contradictions gets you labelled rather than heard.

The stakes feel higher now. Not just for what you say, but for what you notice. For what you allow yourself to see.

"Despite a parabolic curve of scientific and technological achievement, many factors crucial to the individual and collective state of human beings seem to be adrift and disintegrating. Our smartphones get smarter every year ... but can we say the same for ourselves?"

That's the paradox sitting at the heart of everything. We have access to more information, more connection, more capability than any generation in history. And yet something essential feels like it's slipping away.

Something to do with meaning. With coherence. With the sense that we're all part of the same story, moving in the same direction.

"When was the last time you felt deeply assured that the world was moving in the right direction? That the institutions that govern our lives were operating with your best interests at heart? That the news was giving you the unvarnished truth?"

"For many, such confidence belongs to an earlier time .. if it ever existed at all."

That question hits differently than it would have a decade ago. The answer sits heavier now.

Because somewhere along the way, many of us stopped feeling at home in the world we were told we were building together. Stopped recognising ourselves in the future we were promised.

The recognition isn't comfortable. It asks you to question not just what you believe, but how you came to believe it. Not just the content of the story, but the frame holding it all together.

"We live in what might be called an age of disintegration. The bonds that once held families, communities, and nations together seem to be fraying. The shared stories that gave our lives meaning and direction have splintered into competing narratives, each claiming exclusive access to truth."

But here's what's strange about disintegration: it's also revelation.

When the old structures start to crack, you can see what was always underneath them. What was holding them up. What they were actually made of.

And sometimes, what you find there isn't decay.

Sometimes it's something that was waiting to be uncovered.

"We no longer know who we are, what we're for, or where we're headed. We've lost the plot of our collective story."

But losing the plot isn't the end of the story.

Sometimes it's the beginning of remembering a truer one.

From "Morning Waits: Awakening to What Is Within You"