There’s a strange feeling that settles in when you stand back and watch humanity at this moment in time. The swirl of progress and chaos, knowledge and ignorance, hope and despair—it’s bewildering and mesmerizing all at once. You’d think the vast accumulation of human knowledge, the leaps in technology and understanding, would have steered us clear of the pitfalls that have haunted us for centuries. Yet here we are, teetering on a knife’s edge.
The planet burns with global warming, wars rage in places that no longer feel as distant as they once did, and political tides pull at the fabric of societies with reckless abandon. The ancient beliefs and archaic divisions, instead of fading into irrelevance, seem to grow ever more stubborn and loud. And the irony isn’t lost on me: in the age of near-infinite information at one’s finger tips, so many remain trapped by the narratives of the past.
I should be terrified, every rational thought and better judgement inside of me is screaming at me that this is it. Yet, instead, I am overcome by a feeling of fascination.
Maybe it’s a quiet rebellion, or a stubborn hope that despite the blunders and failures, humanity might yet find a way forward—beyond the greed, the shortsightedness, the fear. Maybe it’s the recognition that we’ve faced darkness before, and though the path was often brutal and uneven, the flicker of progress somehow always found its way back.
History is littered with those moments—pivotal points where everything could have unraveled, yet somehow didn’t. I can’t help but wonder who else stood at their own turning point, feeling the same blend of dread and curiosity. Perhaps in 1868 Japan, someone pondered much the same — the unknown future, the fragile balance between destruction and rebirth. The same strange cocktail of fear and fascination.
This moment in history, more than ever feels like one of those turning points. At least to me.
And while the future is uncertain, watching it unfold from the vantage of the present is, quite simply, fascinating.
“More than ever it feels like humanity is on the cusp of either greatness or its own downfall and only one word comes to mind as I take a step back and look at it all unfold. ‘Fascinating.’ I know I should be terrified but I’m not.”
– Gertjan Van der Kelen
