“I saw an age of profound trouble coming. A world and civilization on…you know. Fire. And so I decided, kind of, to take on that challenge.

I failed.

I didn’t fail to save the world. Nobody can do that. I just…failed. The more that I warned, the more that all the power figures who once used to turn me to for advice and guidance…turned against me.

And you know what happened? The more I kept trying, the more that…nobody listened.

So here I am. And here you are. It’s all these years later. Everything — almost every single thing — I warned of came true. Go ahead, read back in the archives and see for yourself. All the nonsense and abuse I used to suffer…it looks pretty foolish now. But it doesn’t matter, because right now?

We’re all in the sh*t.

And me? I’m sort of done. I did my time. I warned as best I could. I gave up many years of my life, in the process, too, when I could and should have been doing better and more interesting and more joyous things. I’m not saying I regret it. I don’t. I had to do it, if only for the sake of my own moral soul. But I should have also know how much it was going to hurt me.

I wonder if that resonates with you on some level. Because I’m sure that you feel it too.”

I’m not saying I’m throwing in the towel. Don’t get me wrong. But I am saying that this way, time, era, model, is now over. What do I mean by that?

We warn. They don’t listen.

They call us names.

We warn, they don’t…

See what’s in that? A vicious cycle. And I’m 100% sure that you’re as sick of it as I am. This way, this model of discourse and interaction — it’s coming to an end now.

Why? Because there’s not much left to warn about. How many times can I say that civilization’s at risk? Or you? How many Trump Presidencies do we have to endure before…go ahead, laugh with me…people get it? Maybe you see my point.

It was our moral duty to warn. But that duty is at an end now, precisely it was just as futile as it was always going to be, if history’s anything to go by. There was maybe a 1% chance they’d have listened to folks like you and me — and let’s face it, most of us are minorities, or women, or different in some way — and that chance didn’t come to be.

So this model’s over. It’s time to break that mold. We warn, they don’t listen, they call us name, we…warn. Now, it’s time for a new model, and that model is just sort of, I don’t know…

Watching, maybe. Here and there, answering the desperate questions they’re finally asking. Is our world on fire? Oh my God, is our civilization breaking down?

How I Failed at What Matters Most, And What it Taught Me by umair haque, Eudaimonia and Co, May 5, 2024