This is a series of draft excerpts from my forthcoming book Collective Souls—shared here with my paid subscribers as an evolving, behind-the-scenes process—an invitation to reflect, respond, and witness the work while the ink is still fresh.
(The curtain rises. The Chorus steps forward. The stage is no longer empty. The entire cast has assembled.)
The Chorus speaks:
"The lines have been spoken. The script, long ago written, nears its final pages. The drama has unfolded in its proper order—first the dreamers, then the wanderers, the warriors, and the mourners.”
“Each has played their part, each has walked their fated path. And now, as the storm gathers for its last assault, they stand together, shoulder to shoulder, waiting for what comes next."
"Prophets, your fire is dimming. What wisdom do you leave behind?"
"Nomads, you have weathered the storm. Will you steady the ship once more?"
"Heroes, your moment is now. Will you rise to meet it?"
"Artists, the world is watching. What will you create from the ruins?"
(The Chorus recedes. The final act begins. A thundercrack booms overhead.)
The stage is set. The final act of history's great drama unfolds. The generations stand assembled, stepping into their roles as they have in every age before this one. The script was written long before any of them were born, and they have arrived precisely on cue.
According to the generational theory espoused by Strauss & Howe in The Fourth Turning, history seems to move in four acts, four seasons that turn over and over again, each one giving way to the next with eerie precision. The High was a time of order, stability, and restoration—an age of institutions rebuilt, of certainty reborn. The Awakening followed, and with it, the dreamers and the rebels who demanded something more. The Unraveling shattered that dream, breaking apart what had once been whole. And now, the Crisis—Act IV—where all that has come before meets its reckoning. This is the moment of fire, the test that will determine what comes next.
The Prophets, now elders, were born in the High. They were raised in an age of unity, shaped by optimism, destined to lead. But now, their torches flicker. Their moment is passing. They hold power, but their grip weakens. Their final task is not to command, but to pass down what they have seen.
The Nomads, hardened by an Unraveling world, have grown into midlife as the crisis managers of this era. They never expected ease or comfort—only the hard work of keeping the ship afloat in a storm they never asked for. Cynical, pragmatic, unflinching, they stand in the shadows, repairing what they can, stabilizing what remains.
The Heroes, now rising into power, step forward to meet their destiny. The weight of the moment rests on their shoulders. They are the ones who will fight, who will rebuild, who will shape what comes after. Every Fourth Turning demands a generation willing to sacrifice, to endure, to act. The burden falls to them, and whether they are ready or not, their time has come.
The Artists, the youngest, have known nothing but the storm. They have no memory of the world before, no certainty of what comes next. They will not lead the battle, nor manage the crisis. Instead, they will watch. They will feel. They will remember. And one day, when the fire has passed and the world is ready to be rebuilt, they will tell the story of what was lost and what was saved.
The stage is no longer empty. The players are in place. The scene is unfolding. But the question remains—has the climax arrived, or is the worst still to come? It feels as if the script is not yet finished. Is the final act being written before our very eyes?
A Genre-Busting Epic
The reel is spinning, but this is a movie no one has ever seen before. The script is unfinished, the genre undefined, the climax unknown. Yet, as the frames flicker past, the themes feel eerily familiar.
There are echoes of The Sum of All Fears—a world teetering on the edge of war, the tension between superpowers crackling like static before the inevitable lightning strike. There are shades of The Day After Tomorrow—a climate on the brink, disasters no longer distant warnings but daily realities. And lurking in the shadows, Ex Machina—the rise of something not human, not bound by our rules, rewriting intelligence itself.
The story unfolding now is a hybrid of all three of these plotlines woven together in an unprecedented genre-busting epic. It defies the conventions of history, a plot so complex and unpredictable that it refuses to be contained within the pages of a script or the frame of a screen. But this isn’t a film. This isn’t fiction. This is real life.
And here’s the catch: we are all in it.
Some of us have leading roles. Some of us are guest stars. Others are part of the supporting cast, walking unknowingly through the background of the great unfolding. But none of us are outside of it. There is no audience, no spectators.
How will you play your part?
Turning the Page on Destiny
The Strauss & Howe model has led us here, winding its path through the centuries, revealing the rhythm of history with the precision of a clockmaker. It has tracked the cycles, mapped the stage, named the players. It has told us what we are, where we stand, and how we got here.
But has it told us why?
A script is not a story. A play is more than its blocking. A prophecy is more than its prediction. Every great actor asks themselves, What is my motivation? And thus, we should all be asking the same of ourselves: What is my purpose? What force has set this great wheel in motion, and why have we arrived together at this moment? The historical model has given us the structure, but it cannot whisper the deeper truth. It cannot tell us what this crisis means.
And that is the missing piece.
We have been following a map, believing it to be the landscape. We have mistaken the plot for the theme. We have assumed that because history repeats, it is fated to do so forever. But the actors are not the same. The stage is not the same. And something—something beyond history—is stirring.
We are not just repeating a cycle. We are standing at a threshold. This is not just another turning—it is an invitation. A call to evolution, to transformation, to something more. If history is a great play, then this is the moment when the script is handed to us.
We must ask: Will we accept our roles blindly, or will we rewrite them?
The Strauss & Howe model has brought us here, but it can take us no further. The mechanics of history have delivered us to the precipice. But if we are to understand what comes next, we must step beyond structure and into meaning. Beyond repetition and into revelation.
We must ask not just who, what, where, or how.
We must ask why.
Intensely raw
and the tempo is speeding up
The vibration feels electric ,rapidly accelerating in a world that seems to me to be wildly unpredictable and chaotic,
Definitely uncharted and time sensitive.
The question you posed is how we will each participate
And your discernment announces that we are all on the collective world stage - and it’s showtime. No audience as the future of our planet moves quickly into the darkness.
Such a deeply personal moment in history.