Dear Us,
If we’re reading this now, at the end of 2026, the uncertainty is probably still here. The pace surely hasn’t slowed, and the noise may not have settled. But we hope that, somewhere along the way, we learned to move with a bit more clarity—not by trying to control the world, but by taking the time to understand it together. And if that’s true, then perhaps we can take some quiet pride in having turned a bit of chaos into meaning, together.
And if we did manage that, even partially, it’s because we stopped seeing chaos only as something to fight or escape.
As Ilya Prigogine, 1977 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on dynamic system physics showed, in complex systems chaos is not the opposite of order. It is often the condition from which new forms of order emerge. When systems are far from equilibrium, fluctuations aren’t just random disturbances, they carry information. If there are feedback loops, if attention is paid, if patterns are allowed to form, coherence can arise without being imposed.
So instead of trying to eliminate chaos, I hope we tried, when we could, to understand it. To notice what repeated, what stabilized, what helped people align rather than fragment. To reinforce the interactions that created trust, learning, and shared direction. Order, in this sense, wasn’t something we forced. It was something we allowed to emerge, by caring for the conditions that made it possible.
That may be all we can ever do
.
But sometimes, it’s enough.
As Karl E. Weick, a leading thinker in organizational sociology, showed, sensemaking is not an individual mental effort, but a collective process. Meaning doesn’t live inside any one person; it forms between people through shared narratives, repeated interactions, and the ongoing negotiation of what is actually happening. Groups don’t hold because everyone agrees. They hold because they converge on what deserves attention, what can be set aside, and how disagreement can be expressed without breaking coordination.
Each time we managed to align on those shared frames, action became possible. Not because we had full information or perfect certainty, but because we had enough shared understanding to move forward together.
But understanding chaos and meaning in this way also changed how we approached the questions in front of us.
Grothendieck had a habit of stepping back from problems that seemed impossibly complex, not to work harder on them, but to rephrase them until the solution became almost obvious.
Faced with the tensions of this year, chaos, polarization, uncertainty, we realized the same might be true for us. That before trying to act, decide, or fix anything, we needed to make sure we were asking the right kind of questions.
When the world feels polarized, instead of asking who is right, we started asking:
Who am I no longer in relationship with, and what would it take to reopen that link, even slightly?
The answer is rarely abstract.
It’s a conversation. A clarification. A pause. A shared project.
Polarization fades when relationships restart.
When everything feels chaotic, instead of asking how do I protect myself from it, we asked:
What creates a bit more clarity, calm, or trust and how can I do more of that?
The answer shows up quickly.
Some actions spread confusion. Others stabilize things.
Reinforcing the second kind is already a form of protection.
And when it feels like leaders are pushing the world toward dystopia, instead of asking how did they get it so wrong, we asked:
Who is becoming the kind of person the future actually needs and how can I help them grow?
The answer is never “everyone” or “no one.”
It’s a younger colleague. A student. A builder. Someone learning to think clearly, care deeply, and act responsibly. Supporting them is already shaping the future.
So the questions we learned to live with were simple:
Where can I restore a relationship?
What pattern is helping and how can I strengthen it?
Who can I help become better equipped for what’s coming?
None of these require power, certainty, or grand plans.
They only require attention.
And maybe that’s how meaning forms in the end
not through control over chaos,
but through small, repeatable acts that quietly improve the system we’re part of.
And if we managed to do even a small part of this over the past year, then we can already take some quiet pride in it. Because in complex systems, small shifts compound. A repaired relationship, a clearer question, a reinforced pattern rarely stays local. It travels. It builds. It snowballs.
Meaning, once it starts to circulate, tends to do that.
And that may be enough to carry us forward.
Happy New Year 2027!