We are living on a threshold, a time of drastic and rapid change in the world. It’s an unsettling time because we don’t know what to expect, and many of us are feeling a lot of stress and anxiety.

I find it helpful to remember that humans have faced and survived many transitions, crises, and catastrophes over thousands of years. People lived through different specific circumstances in different times and places, but their emotional experiences were the same because we are all human.

Perspectives is a series of essays that looks at how different people in different times and places have found ways to manage the challenges that they faced. Maybe some of their strategies will be helpful for you.

Let’s go back in time to England in 1770, early in the Industrial Revolution. Picture a small town on the green countryside. A farmer is delivering bundles of wool to the spinning shop. Inside, several family members are sitting at spinning wheels, making the wool into thread. Further down the street is the weaver. Here, skilled craftspeople work on looms to weave the thread into cloth. Our last stop is the tailor who sews clothes by hand. These skilled tradespeople are their own bosses; they work in family businesses that have contributed to the local economy for generations. Since every step in the process is done by hand, clothing is expensive. Average people don’t have many items of clothing, but their clothes are well made and last a long time.

The people in 1770 didn’t know it, but their world was about to change drastically. In 1781, the steam engine was improved so that it could run large machines, like looms for weaving cloth. This was when the Industrial Revolution really took off in England and quickly spread throughout the world. Big, ugly factories were soon coughing out coal smoke and producing lots of cloth for a low price.

The surge of inexpensive cloth put many local spinning and weaving shops out of business, and the craftspeople often had no options except to get a job at the factory. Men, women, and even young children worked long hours in dangerous conditions where fingers or even a hand might get trapped in a machine and crushed. Factory workers often lived in crowded, filthy apartment buildings and earned low wages. These conditions were not healthy and led to the spread of disease.

This brings us to another terrible fact of life in England (and other places) at that time: tuberculosis, also known as consumption. Tuberculosis is a lung disease. A little cough gradually gets worse until the patient is choking while coughing up blood and phlegm. Tuberculosis is treatable today, but in the eighteenth century, most people who caught it died in great suffering and misery. Many, many people died, even those who were young and strong.

Do the hardships of this time in England remind you of any aspects of our world today?

• New technologies bringing rapid and drastic changes

• Factories polluting the air and water

• Family businesses closing due to circumstances beyond their control

• Skilled craftspeople forced to work in terrible conditions

• Local economies turned upside down

• Rich factory owners getting richer while their employees barely survive

• Widespread disease with no effective treatment

• Tragic death of innocent people

At last we come to John Keats, the topic of this essay. Keats was an English poet who lived from 1795-1821. When Keats was fourteen, his mother died of tuberculosis. A few years later, he cared for his brother who was sick with tuberculosis.

Let’s just pause a moment to imagine what that must have been like: watching his brother choke while coughing up blood, becoming weaker each day, struggling more each day just to breathe. How impotent John must have felt being unable to do anything to help other than provide basic care and comfort until finally his brother died. Shortly afterward, John himself started coughing, and he knew what was coming.

Keats expressed his feelings through his writing. His poems are complicated, reflecting his complicated world and his conflicting emotions. Like many of us, he struggled with questions like these: Why is the world so unfair? Why are some people so cruel? Why do bad things happen? Why did I have this bad luck (tuberculosis)? What will my future look like? What’s the purpose of my life?

Keats often felt exhausted and discouraged from trying to answer these questions, and I suspect many people today can relate to his feelings. Then, while reading a book, Keats had a flash of insight which he developed an idea called a Negative Capability. Here’s how he described it in a letter to his brothers:

“. . . [W]hen a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.”

Let’s take a look at that quote and consider what Keats meant. Normally when we hear the word negative, it means something bad. But actually Keats meant that he had developed the ability to be peaceful in the midst of a crazy world. To exist “in uncertainties” without getting stuck in “irritable reaching” of trying to figure it all out. To be peaceful with NOT knowing all the answers.

So there are two parts to the Negative Capability. First Keats acknowledges that the world is crazy and he is incapable of figuring it out. Second, he learns to exhale and be at peace even in the crazy world that he can’t understand.

A Negative Capability is healthy alternative to three unhealthy extremes:

1. Denial: “The world isn’t really crazy at all; it makes perfect sense if you understand things like I do.” These over-confident people with an “I know it all” attitude are usually annoying to others, and they are also deceiving themselves. Believing that you have it all figured out is comforting, but it is really true? Probably not.

2. Surrender: “The world is crazy. Life sucks. Let’s get high or drunk or play video games 24 hours a day.” This relieves the pressure by giving up. It’s escaping the world or hiding from the world.

3. Overwhelmed: “The world is crazy! I have to figure it out!” This approach will drive a person crazy because you can’t figure everything out, not really. No one can.

With his Negative Capability, Keats found a way to live in a crazy world that was both honest and healthy. He acknowledged that the world often doesn’t make sense, that things are unfair and unpredictable. He admitted that he didn’t understand everything and that he could never figure it all out. BUT he’s peaceful with that. Instead of getting stressed by his not knowing, he accepts it.

It’s important to remember that ACCEPTANCE of reality does NOT have to mean being passive. Acceptance of reality is the necessary first step to working for change. (We’ll look at Perspectives on working for change in future essays.) To effectively help others or change the world, we need to be operating from a solid foundation. Negative Capability was Keat’s foundation. He essentially said, “The world is crazy. It’s impossible to understand a crazy world in a logical way. But it’s ok. I can be peaceful in my heart even as I acknowledge the craziness and the fact that I don’t have everything figured out.”

A Negative Capability is not the enemy of rational thought or science. The two can work together very effectively, especially in a crisis situation. I think of the movie about the Apollo 13 mission to the moon in 1970. Careful thinking and lots of math and science were necessary to plan this mission and launch the spacecraft. And then the unexpected happened: an oxygen tank exploded, and the astronauts’ lives were suddenly in danger. Let’s consider the different ways the NASA scientists might have responded.

1. Denial: “We did all the math and science correctly. All our previous missions turned out fine. Everything will be ok this time too. The oxygen tank didn’t really explode. We don’t need to do anything.”

2. Surrender: “The astronauts are going to die. It’s a shame but there’s nothing we can do.”

3. Overwhelmed: “Oh no! This is terrible! I don’t know what to do!”

The NASA scientists started with a Negative Capability by facing the truth: this was a very dangerous and unexpected event! They had never experienced this circumstance before and didn’t know what to do. They took maybe a minute to freak out, but then they settled down and thought logically: “Ok, is there anything we can do? What are some options? Let’s work together to explore options and see if we can fix this problem.” They faced the truth but maintained enough peace that they were able to work effectively to solve the problem. In the end, they brought the astronauts home safely.

So how can a person today develop a Negative Capability? It certainly takes some practice. Here are a couple strategies that might be helpful.

• Quiet Your Mind: Keats said that a Negative Capability was the opposite of “irritable reaching after fact and reason.” Fact and reason are both wonderful and essential aspects of life, but when we get caught in a brain chatter endless loop of “irritable reaching” we aren’t making any progress; we are just making ourselves exhausted and discouraged. Mindfulness practices and meditation are some ways to help quiet the mind.

• Practice Metacognition: Metacognition means being aware of your thoughts. Our brains can get into a constant chatter loop that plays in the background without our even noticing, like a TV always playing in the next room. Observe your thoughts. Try to notice when you are in the “irritable reaching” mindset. When you find yourself struggling to make rational sense of something, consider if this is something that can be understood in a rational way. If the answer is yes, then great! There are many things we need to figure out that require thinking, such as saving the astronauts on Apollo 13. But sometimes the answer is no, this can’t be understood rationally.Why did I have to get tuberculosis? Why do good people die young? Questions like these don’t have logical answers. If you’re “irritably reaching” about things that are more spiritual, try to breathe and recognize that logic is not going to find an answer.

• Think About Your Track Record: As you go through your day, notice all the things that you don’t know. Here are some of my things: “How does the microwave work? Why does the copy machine always run out of paper in the middle of my job? Why is that other driver being so obnoxious? Will there be a long line at the grocery store when I’m ready to check out? If I buy a lottery ticket, will I win?” When we start paying attention, we will probably realize that we live with lots and lots of things that we don’t know. Many of these things we’ll find out in time (grocery line), others we’ll probably never know (obnoxious driver), and some we could find out if we really wanted to but we probably won’t bother (microwave). We are able to live peacefully with the unknown in many aspects of life. It’s true that life-impacting unknown things are much more stressful than the copier paper. My point is that we do have a track record of living with the unknown in smaller ways. With practice, we can build on that track record and become a little more peaceful with the life-changing unknowns.

• Trust Yourself: This strategy builds on thinking about your track record. When I go to the grocery store, I don’t know if the line will be long. If it’s short, I’ll be glad! But if it’s long, I’ll deal with it. I’ll look at the magazines or at my phone while I’m waiting in line. Most people have the ability to adapt to circumstances and deal with things in the moment. Unexpected things happen, but if you’re reading this, you have a success rate of 100% for making it through bad days. Although the grocery store line is not a very important disruption to life, I find it helpful to remember that I can usually deal with unexpected things pretty well. That’s not nothing.

Remember, finding peace in the middle of craziness does NOT have to mean giving up. Cultivating a Negative Capability gives you a solid foundation for helping others or creating something new and better in the world.

John Keats’ offering to the world was his collection of poems and, perhaps even more important, his idea of the Negative Capability. Keats died of tuberculosis at the age of 25. Finding a way to have peace in his heart did not save his life. But the Negative Capability meant he was better able to enjoy his life instead of staying caught in a loop of “irritable reaching” for answers that could not be found.

Why this essay? In this version of our series we’re gently inviting the Gen Z (ish) reader into a rapidly growing playground that’s distinct from the playground their parents used to play in. We call it The Threshold Playground. If you prefer, the technically dense and heavily footnoted version of this essay can be found here.

I don’t remember much from my college biology class, but I do remember growing tiny fungi in my own little petri dish and then counting each day to see how much they had reproduced. Each student had to graph the number of fungi in their dish each day. At the end of the experiment, students compared their graphs. The professor was not at all surprised when each student’s graph showed an S-shaped curve. In fact, this was the real lesson of the experiment: the population of a living system (from fungi to buffalo) grows along an S-shaped curve which biologists call a Logistic Growth Curve.

An example of a typical Logistic Growth Curve is shown on the graph below. You can see that the population starts small and grows slowly. The line climbs at a low angle. This can be called a Type I Civilization. Eventually, the line takes an upward turn as the population starts growing very rapidly. This can be called a Type II Civilization. Finally, growth slows down and the line levels off for a Type III Civilization.

Let’s consider this natural pattern with a species that is more charming than fungi: ducks on a pond. Mr. and Mrs. Duck spot the pond and decide it would be a nice place to live. They have a nest of baby ducklings each year, and the total number of ducks on the pond grows at a slow, steady rate. This is a Type I Civilization as the line is going up gradually. But when those baby ducks grow up and pair off and start having babies of their own, the duck population starts growing at a much faster pace. This is where the line on the graph goes up sharply (a Type II Civilization). Maybe Mr. and Mrs. Duck had forty babies total, but they can soon also have eight hundred grandbabies thanks to exponential growth. In just a few years’ time the population goes from two ducks to 842!

But this rapid growth can’t go on forever because of logistics: the pond is only so big. The number of plants and little fish for the ducks to eat is limited. The ducks start having to compete for food and for space, so the atmosphere may become aggressive. Some of the ducks might fly away and look for an empty pond. Those who remain will have fewer babies until the number of total ducks levels off. It’s still a large number of ducks, but that number is now holding steady rather than growing (Type III Civilization). The pond population has reached maturity, and things are calm again. The line on the graph levels off, and the S-shape is complete.

It may seem that the pond would become boring now that the population isn’t growing anymore, but actually, the stage is now set for other exciting things to happen. Living systems are always growing. When they stop increasing in numbers/quantity, they shift to increasing in quality. When the number of ducks is in balance with the food supply, there’s no more need for competition or fighting over the last little fish. The ducks can settle down and enjoy harmony on the pond.

The S-shaped Logistic Growth Curve for Humans

Now that we understand the S-shaped Logistic Growth Curve in its scientific and mathematical sense, let’s consider how this natural pattern can be seen in human history. The Logistic Growth Chart for human civilization starts around twelve thousand years ago when early humans developed agriculture. Agriculture led to extra food which led people to build small villages to support trade. Next, rulers (kings) rose up and built castles which required armies to defend them and then taxes to pay the soldiers. This was the human Type I Civilization. The line on the S-shaped Logistic Growth Curve was slowly sloping upward, and with each new level of development, the pace of growth became a little bit faster.

The big breakthrough that kicked off our Type II Civilization was the Industrial Revolution. The invention of the steam engine triggered the bend upwards which started humanity on the steep section of the line with an era of rapid growth. The steam engine allowed for factories, trains, and steamboats. New scientific breakthroughs quickly followed: telegraphs, electrical systems, antibiotics, nuclear energy, the internet. The pace of growth of human civilization (both new ideas and population numbers) went faster and faster.

But as we saw with the ducks, rapid growth can’t go on forever. And in fact, the S-shaped Logistic Growth Curve of human civilization has already started the bend towards leveling off into a Type III Civilization. Here are a couple of indicators of slowing growth:

1. Population: We still have more humans each year than the year before, but the RATE of population growth has been declining since the late 1960s. In fact, governments in many countries are trying to encourage young adults to have more babies because they are concerned about the decline of population growth. In the United States, some politicians recently coined the phrase “under babied” to describe people who weren’t having as many children as these politicians would like.

2. Energy: We are still drilling for oil and mining coal, but pace of growth in production has slowed. Companies have to spend a lot more money to get the oil and the coal than they used to. Much of the easy-to-reach oil was pumped out long ago which is why we now see very expensive oil rigs in very unwelcoming places like the Arctic Sea.

3. Economics: Family finances show the same pattern of decline. In the 1950’s, the standard family structure was that the father worked one job and earned enough to buy a house and a car for the family, take a vacation each year, send the kids to college, and retire on a good pension at the age of 62. That level of abundance is almost unfathomable today. Today, it is common for both parents to work full time and still struggle mightily to be able to buy a house or a car. The children often take on massive debt with student loans to pay for their own educations. And if the parents are lucky enough to have sufficient savings, they might be able to retire at age 67.

These and many other aspects of life are examples of how the period of rapid growth is ending and the S-shaped Logistic Growth Curve is bending towards level. To be sure, some areas of our civilization, such as AI, continue to grow very quickly, but overall, growth is slowing.

What Does This Mean for Our Civilization?

A problem for us in the world today is that most institutions are based on the idea that rapid growth will continue forever. If you look at the spreadsheets for institutions from federal governments to businesses to investment plans, they clearly state an expected growth rate, usually between four and seven percent per year. They haven’t recognized the fact that growth is slowing down. The Logistic Growth Curve of human civilization is at the leveling off phase. This means changes are coming to our world, and institutions that rely on continued rapid growth are destined to have difficulties. Cancer cells rely on continued rapid growth, but when their host dies, the cancer cells die too.

Fortunately, if we understand the natural pattern of growth and can see that human civilization is entering a Type III Civilization era, this leveling off phase offers new opportunities. For twelve thousand years, humans have focused on competition and getting MORE: more grain, more trade, more gadgets, more money, more power. This pursuit of MORE has led to a standard of living for which we can be very grateful: not many people would want to give up penicillin or electricity. But like the ducks whose pond was only so big, humans have been pushing the limits of the resources of our planet. So instead of a competitive pursuit of MORE, this moment in history is calling us to switch our focus to BETTER, to emphasize quality over quantity.

What does a world of BETTER look like? Living systems are constantly growing, but as they mature, the type of growth changes. They grow deeper, more inter-connected. Growth now looks at BETTER ways of living. Can we improve preventative health care so people don’t get sick as much and less penicillin is needed? Can we make it cheaper and easier for people to use solar panels to generate clean electricity? The transition from a Type II civilization to a Type III civilization is a gradual process which has already begun. We already have some things that are BETTER and use fewer natural resources. My first car in 1980 got eighteen miles per gallon, was not a very smooth ride, and had no safety features other than the seatbelt. My current car gets much better mileage and is much more comfortable and safe. My car consumption is level because I still have one car, but it’s a much better car. That’s the process that will continue as humanity matures. Other aspects of a mature system include diversity, reciprocity, stability, mutual reliance, coordination, and cooperation. The mature Type III civilization has many advantages. It is cheaper to maintain, it can absorb shocks more easily, and it has far less drama.

So we are somewhere in the bending of the S-shaped Logistic Growth Curve line between Type II and Type III civilizations, from a time of frantic growth and competitive aggression to a time of mature deepening and collaboration. It’s impossible to know how long this transition process will take. It’s impossible to know how much turmoil and conflict our civilization might have to endure to get there. But we will get there eventually, because, as Steve Irwin said, “That’s nature’s way,” and we are part of nature.

Why this essay? In this version of our series we’re gently inviting the Gen Z (ish) reader into a rapidly growing playground that’s distinct from the playground their parents used to play in.

When the Strait of Hormuz closed in early March 2026, many people started preparing for the oil shortages that occurred immediately and for the many other consequences that would soon follow due to the disruption of trade. At the global level, government leaders started rationing fuel, tapping into their national oil reserves, and setting up trade with new partners. At the local level, individuals began driving less and cutting back on their spending due to gas shortages and rising prices. As people tried to address these problems, two main approaches were common:

1. Fix-It Thinking: We must DO something to fix this problem so that things can get back to normal.

2. Collapse Thinking: There is nothing we can do. The world is falling apart.

The closing of the Strait of Hormuz is just one of many serious problems that our world is facing. It is understandable that people would respond with Fix-it Thinking or Collapse Thinking. But although these two responses seem like opposites, they share a common foundation: They are both based on the belief that the current world is the only possible world. They are based on the belief that we can either restore the old world or everything ends.

But are these really the only two options? Why can’t there be other possibilities? What if we think outside the box, get creative, and imagine a new and different world? We don’t have to rebuild on an old foundation. We can create something new.

Picture a caterpillar making a cocoon or chrysalis. The caterpillar can represent the old, familiar world. Once inside the chrysalis, the caterpillar actually dissolves into green goo. But the death of the caterpillar is also the birth of something new: a butterfly.

(for more of Elisabet’s wisdom, see https://bit.ly/sahtouris - can take 20 seconds to load)

This period of transition, this threshold, is very unsettling, because it is hard to watch the familiar world dissolve into goo. But as nature shows us again and again, the end of one thing is the birth of something new. (Who remembers the song “Circle of Life” from The Lion King movie?)

A new butterfly world sounds great, but the creation of that butterfly is a process that takes time. This means that right now, as the old is ending and the new is not yet formed, we must live through a very uncomfortable middle stage of green goo. How can we maintain balance while standing on this threshold with one foot on the side of the old world and one foot stepping cautiously into something new? Let’s explore an approach called Threshold Guide Thinking.

A threshold is the narrow piece of flooring at the bottom of a doorway. If we think of the old, familiar (caterpillar) world as one side of the door, and the new (butterfly) world as the other side, we could say that the we are now on the threshold, between the two worlds. We are in the chrysalis.

Dual Vision is not natural for most people. We tend to see only one thing at a time. This series of essays titled How to Think Like a Threshold Guide explains the process that civilizations pass through as they grow and change. Understanding the history of humanity can help us understand where we are today and what can come next as we work to create a new and better world for the future.

The graphic below gives an overview of the ten step process which can be described as The Emancipation Architecture. Emancipation means becoming free. We most commonly hear this term used in the context of the end of slavery. In the context of Dual Vision, it means setting yourself free to see both sides the Threshold at the same time. Architecture refers to the fact that this process needs to happen step-by-step with each step building on the ones that came before.

I will be posting ten essays over the coming weeks which will explain each of these steps in detail.

Why this essay? This is the first guest essay by Marian Marley, who I recently introduced. As a former English teacher, she saw value in simplifying my writing, which can be, shall we say, quite dense. This is the first of, hopefully, many future guest essays. Please give her a warm welcome in the comments below. And if you enjoy her writing, please share with your network. 💚

A threshold is the narrow strip of flooring directly under a doorway. When we walk from one room to another or from inside the house to the outside, we cross a threshold. Threshold can also mean the transition from one thing to another. Some thresholds are small ones that we cross without even thinking about them: Each night we end the day by going to sleep, and we wake up to a new day the next morning. Other thresholds are much more significant. For example, a wedding is a big threshold as two people pass from the world of being single to the world of being married.

Graduating from high school is another major threshold. After the speeches and the reading of all the names, the big moment arrives, and the graduates move the tassel on their mortarboard cap from the right side to the left. At that moment, they are crossing a threshold, passing through a door and leaving the world of high school behind. This profound moment typically carries many emotions. Some graduates feel pride in their accomplishments but also sadness at saying goodbye to friends. Some graduates feel relief that they have made it through difficulties to reach freedom. Since leaving one world means stepping in to a new world, each graduate must also think about what’s waiting on the other side of that threshold. Is it a job, military service, university, trade school, volunteer work? Imagining that future usually brings more emotions. There may be excitement about the coming new era but also nervousness. What will this new world really be like? Will I be successful? What if…?

Our lives are full of thresholds, from the small thresholds we don’t even notice to the profound thresholds that are truly life changing. These big thresholds are both exciting and scary: we know what we are leaving behind, but we don’t really know what is coming next. While we can know some aspects of that future, if we’re honest with ourselves, a lot is unknown and unknowable until we live it each new day. To borrow from Star Trek, we might call this new world “The Undiscovered Country” that invites us “to boldly go” where we haven’t been before.

Boldly is an appropriate word, because big thresholds can be scary.

• Crossing the threshold is scary.

• Standing on the familiar side and looking through the open door is scary.

• Even simply recognizing that A DOOR EXISTS, that there is an opening that we could pass through, is scary.

In some cases we can decide not to pass through a threshold. Even while standing at the altar, a bride or groom can back out at the last minute and decide to remain in the world of being single. Other times we don’t have an option; we must pass through a threshold. A mother who is in the process of giving birth can’t suddenly say, “Gee, this is really hard. I changed my mind. I think I’ll adopt.” In these cases, the only way out is through.

Life gives us thresholds. Sometimes they are easy and welcome, sometimes not. So how can we best navigate the difficult transitions? Here are a couple things that can help:

1. Community: Knowing that others are dealing with the same threshold can make the threshold easier to cross. We can support and encourage each other. For the mother giving birth, community could be a Lamaze class with other expectant mothers as well as the friends and family members giving encouragement.

2. Knowledge: Hearing about how people throughout history have managed their different thresholds gives us perspective on our own threshold. Learning about the cycles and patterns of history also gives perspective, and perspective makes our own journey easier to understand, even when it is still hard to experience. For the mother giving birth, remembering all the mothers throughout history who have given birth can help.

3. Boldness: This means doing our best each day to focus on the positive, on the possibilities. The expectant mother can think of the baby that will eventually arrive one way or another. Crossing our threshold can still be really hard, and some days we may feel the opposite of bold, but each day is a new chance to do the best we can on that day.

The purpose of this Substack is to help people understand and navigate thresholds, especially the big threshold of changes in the world, a threshold that all humans living at this time will encounter. This Substack doesn’t have all the answers, but it will try to address questions like these:

• What are thresholds?

• How have different eras of people in different parts of the world faced thresholds and made it through successfully?

• What cycles or patterns can be found in the thresholds of human history?

• What strategies can be useful as we live through the difficult and scary aspects of thresholds, especially thresholds that are given to us, not necessarily chosen by us?

• What is possible?

• What wonderful new world can we realize on the other side of that threshold?

• What role can each of us play as we venture into this Undiscovered Country?

Are you ready? Let’s boldly go.

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