It's Not a Collapse — It's Just Fall
Cycling is a good exercise
Lately, I've felt tired of thinking, analyzing, even reading and consuming. Instead I'm drawn to embodied things: long hikes, planting plants, cooking, cleaning. In the good old days this was just called living life.
It's not that I'm in a bad mood. I function just fine, playing with ideas in my little cave. But after a busy summer, I feel a quiet deflation. The energy that once stretched outward is turning inward. I go slow, and focus on creating more headspace - to not rush the thinking, to lace it with feeling, to let things emerge.
Earlier in my life, I might have panicked or tried to force myself back into productivity. Now I can see it for what it is: a seasonal shift.
But our culture doesn't like cycles. It worships growth curves. Always up, always more, always better. Even in self-improvement, we treat ourselves like GDP graphs. If you're not constantly producing or improving, it must mean something's wrong.
Except nature doesn't work that way. Neither do societies. Neither do we.
The illusion of endless summer
The past few decades were a kind of long summer: acceleration, globalization, optimism, cheap money (at least for some), dopamine abundance. In summer, everything grows: good crops and weeds alike. Hype, fragile systems, shallow trends - they can all thrive in the surplus.
But abundance can hide brittleness and growth often disguises weakness.
The fall, not a collapse
That's where we are now. Leaves are dropping. Energy is contracting. Online, people are withdrawing. Economically, easy money is gone (at least for some). Socially, trust feels thinner. Personally, many of us feel depleted.
It's tempting to call this collapse. But maybe it's just fall (or autumn, at least for some).
Fall is not death. It's the letting-go, the slow unmasking, the pruning that clears the way for endurance. Trees shed leaves to conserve energy for winter. We are doing the same: shedding illusions, habits, even entire systems that can't carry us through the cold.
Preparing for winter
Fall also asks us to prepare. Not in a panicked way, but in a clarifying way.
Just as people once stocked pantries, made preserves, and gathered wood, we're invited to declutter our values and priorities.
I see it as an invitation to ask some questions:
What do I truly need for the months ahead?
Which projects, habits, and beliefs are worth carrying into the lean season?
What is just dead weight?
This preparation is a kind of inner harvest — a sorting of essentials from excess. It's not collapse. It's pruning, conserving, making room for what matters most.
Returning to the tangible
There's something about how fall and winter force us back to the local, the tangible, the immediate circle. When the grand narratives fail, we return to what we can touch: the garden, the meal, the neighbor. I see it as finding solid ground, not a regression.
Maybe that's why so many of us are drawn to embodied things right now. Baking bread. Walking without podcasts. Fixing things with our hands. These aren't escapes from reality; they're returns to it. When the abstract systems feel untrustworthy, we ground ourselves in what's immediate and real.
The global story might be fracturing, but the local story - your street, your people, your hands in the dirt - is still there and unfolding.
Winter as bullshit filter
Winter is harsher still, but it is clarifying. It doesn't allow things to survive rent-free. Shallow roots won't make it. Inflated stories won't either. Winter kills the bullshit.
That sounds bleak, but it's also the gift of winter. It shows us what's actually strong, what holds under pressure, what is worth keeping. The rest composts into soil for what comes next.
Seasons within seasons
On the civilizational scale, Strauss and Howe's "Fourth Turning" suggests we are in a winter cycle: institutions breaking down, collective stress tests everywhere.
On the digital scale, the internet has moved from spring's excitement through summer's abundance into autumn's fatigue.
On the personal scale, many of us feel the same contraction in our bodies and minds.
The seasons align.
The lesson of fall
So when things feel like they're fraying, when the surface looks bare, when energy turns inward maybe it's not collapse at all. Maybe it's just fall.
Fall reminds us that endless summer isn't real. Growth requires pruning. Renewal requires death of the old. And winter, though cold, carries seeds invisibly underground.
If we can accept the cycle, then spring will come — not as a miracle, but as the natural next turn.
Oh, and also:
“Do not tire, never lose interest, never grow indifferent – lose your invaluable curiosity and you let yourself die. It’s as simple as that.”
–Tove Jansson, Fair Play, 2007
P.S. I always think of the Moomin Troll who accidentally woke up in the middle of winter. At first it felt alien, hostile, and wrong — all he wanted was to crawl back into sleep. But since he couldn't, he adapted. He found strange creatures, new rhythms, and unexpected adventures. That's what winter can be for us too — not only a season of loss, but of discovering life in new forms.
I love this.
This is a good reminder. I usually feel a sense of renewal and inspiration when fall arrives, although this year hasn't had the same impact. It could be because I recently came to the end of some projects that have been going on for a few years and I'm just laying low and recharging. Or that the weather has been clinging to summer vibes despite the official change of season. In any case, I'm sure that the autumn inspiration is on its way, so I'll just be patient. :)