Letter to Editor: World just too confusing

Here is a letter to editor of a leading US news portal by one of its subscriber under the heading - World just too confusing

World just too confusing

A good friend recently told me they believe they are suffering from vertigo. My friend described the symptoms:

Up is down, down is up.

Wrong is right, right is wrong.

Lies are true, truths are lies.

Shooting a woman who might be a protester point blank is good in the U.S.; shooting a protestor in another country, like Iran, is bad.

Swindling people is good, not bad.

Sending billions of dollars to another country to help its economy while ignoring the U.S. economy is good, not bad.

Threatening friendly countries and praising corrupt enemy countries is good, not bad.

Letting people die from hunger and lack of medical care in our wealthy (for now) country is good, not bad.

Trying to start wars to distract the country from learning the ugly truth about their leader is good, not bad.

I seem to be seeing the same things happening. Perhaps I have vertigo too?

 

When you become too good to resist your downfall

Your house is on fire.

The flames are spreading, the smoke is thick, and the alarms are screaming. Yet instead of reaching for water, you stand there—admiring the glow. You call it divine will. You call it destiny. You call it a magnificent blaze that should not be interfered with.

That is what the current situation feels like.

The warning signs were everywhere. The dashboard was flashing red. The heat was rising. But rather than acknowledging the danger, some romanticized it. They called it the wrath of God. Others described it as a beautiful dance of flames. And slowly, the narrative shifted: perhaps the fire is too powerful, too meaningful, too grand to be extinguished.

But when you decide the fire is too important to put out, you also decide your house is not worth saving.

And when you convince yourself that you are above acting—above resisting, above correcting course—you become complicit in your own destruction. At that point, there is no villain left to blame. The flames are no longer the only threat. Your inaction is.

Downfall does not begin in the streets.
It begins in the mind.

It starts the moment you normalize what should alarm you.
The moment you justify what should be challenged.
The moment you admire what is quietly destroying you.

If you are too proud to confront the fire within your thinking, it will eventually consume the reality around you. Ignored danger does not disappear. Romanticized destruction does not become harmless. A fire left untended does what fire always does—it spreads.

And by the time you decide it should have been stopped, there may be nothing left to save.

The real battle is never just outside.
It is first within.

Extinguish the flames in your mind before they take your house with them.

The Movement And The Move

Technology has taught us many things. One of the most important lessons is how to design systems. As we mastered the art of system design, the way systems function for us fundamentally changed. This shift doesn’t apply only to technological systems, but also to higher-order systems—the invisible structures that guide life on this planet.

Let me explain how our understanding of system design changed the way systems work for us.

Before the advent of modern technology, higher-order systems guided humanity by observing human movement. These systems took input from how people naturally behaved and responded accordingly. They adapted to human patterns and, when crises arose, helped guide humanity through them.

But as humans began to master system design, the relationship reversed. Instead of systems observing humans, humans began observing the systems that guided them. We tried to understand their internal logic, decode their rules, and replicate them to build our own systems. At first, this curiosity was about understanding. But it didn’t stop there. Once humans understood these systems, they began to manipulate them.

Consider the traffic signal system. As long as vehicles follow traffic rules and obey signals, the system guides traffic movement smoothly. However, when drivers start anticipating the signals—trying to predict them or exploit their timing—the system changes. Instead of guiding traffic flow, it begins to influence how vehicles are steered, encouraging acceleration, braking, and shortcuts based on anticipation rather than natural movement.

This is the deeper shift: when humans decode the internal logic of higher-order systems, they start shaping those systems through their moves rather than their movement. And once systems are shaped by our moves, they, in turn, start shaping our moves instead of our movement. That distinction is subtle, but profound.

When humanity is shaped for its moves rather than its movement, something fundamental changes. Humanity becomes a piece in a chess game. The entire world turns into a board where the goal is to anticipate and influence the next move. As more of the world is designed around moves, people begin to move like pawns—positioned, anticipated, and directed—rather than flowing naturally through the game of life.