On Wednesday 21 January 2026, the Ecocivilisation Movement held its annual retrospective of the past year and prospective of the one just begun. We gathered online from around the world to take stock of where weâve been and what weâve done, where weâve come and how itâs landed us in the here and now, and what it portends for this year going forward.
The event was both somber and joyful, both concerned and optimistic. The optimism, though, was almost an act of defiance, as though the storm clouds that have not only gathered on the horizon but have begun to wreak havoc in earnest around the world couldnât batter us down. How could one take such a stance without some sort of naĂŻve Pollyannaism that simply ignored the writing on the wall and the dire message of a new Dark Age already at our doorstep?
For my part, I sought to take an honest look at what weâve been through and what weâve managed to accomplish as an Ecocivilisation Movement over the past year (see my seven-slide keynote presentation here). I jokingly began by searching for my crystal ball to predict whatâs coming, but no â that just doesnât exist. We do, however, have each other. And the reflection on how we can âbe the change,â as Mahatma Gandhi exhorted, was nicely captured in the spontaneous exchange I had with Stefan Blachfellner, Senior Lecturer in Business Strategy of the Hochschule Burgenland University of Applied Sciences in Austria and Managing Director of the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science (BCSSS). Hereâs what was said:
Stefan:
âAfter a long time of stepping down and back, it is time to shake the World again, in a gentle way for those who help each other and in a brutal way for those who hurt us. We need to counter-fight again… Brutal Facts of reality :)âAlex&er:
âAhh⊠the fight. A question of the transmutation of energies, of crises, of threats into powerful energies for connection to, with, and through life. Not a traditional fight!
(We canât fight with the same aggression and violence that we are seeking to overcome. That much is clear.)âStefan:
âI know, but still very intentional directed Energy đ
We always fought in the sense of Gandhi; civil disobedience, non-violent, still forceful.âAlex&er:
âYes, the first step is to Be the Change we Want to See – or as you and I rephrased it for the 2014 EMCSR (European Meeting of Cybernetics and Systems Research) – to âbe the systems you want to see in the world.â If we embody anger and violence, that will be what we see in the world because it will be what we bring to it. Change begins with each one of us – and now (at last) empowered by and with each other through the Internet and forums such as this.âStefan:
â100% Agreeâ
My sense is that no generation on earth at this time is any longer embracing the stance of disinterested aloofness.  Itâs no longer cool to be blasĂ© and flip off the world with a cavalier shrug of âwhateverâ.  And while popular entertainment still teems with zombie apocalypses and dystopian futures, itâs too in our face now and it stings (if weâre fortunate enough for it not to be already causing deep pain, suffering, and anguish).
So, I have become an Antidystopian.  Antidystopianism roots out cynicism and indifference, and especially fatalism and despair, and it sources them back to love, hope, and care. It is underwritten by an Ethic of Care, the closest stance on which is embodied by ancient wisdom traditions such as that of Ahimsa (which, in the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jainist traditions, embodies and enacts respect for all living things and the avoidance of violence toward others).
May you take heart, even if you feel hopeless. If you give hope to others, you will find it, yourself. Connect to the deeper source of syntony that has brought forth a planet teeming with life, abounding in beauty, and redolent of magical moments in even your darkest of days. This is the way of the Sourceârer of Syntony. This is how we transmute crisis into opportunity, despair into hope â by being the source, ourselves. Indeed, this is the way.