Staying with the trouble

I’m going to try to update this /now page more often, now that I’m out of the dark. Presently, the focus is client work. So many leadership teams are leaping to integrate agentic artificial intelligence into their enterprise strategy, business model and operating system. Or well: the chief executives are—the senior executives I work with are the ones who need to execute on the ‘vision.’ And this is without having the participatory knowledge from questing.

As you know, questing is the precursor to differentiated strategy (advantage). It’s how we cultivate optionality and in-house intelligence so that we aren’t shackled to incrementalism nor jumping on the bandwagon without knowing what’s-what. It’s how we stay relevant in a changing world, discerning the difference between real value and inflated hype.

But the world seems hell-bent on integrating “agentic artificial intelligence into everything we do,” alas. It is somewhat ridiculous; an accelerant to existential risks and the epitome of the multipolar trap we share. For those in the know, it is quietly quite horrid what we are doing (and the pace we are doing it).

AND YET I have come to know: I work best within such contexts, rather than proselytising from without. One can only do so much to warn folks of the perils ahead (and besides: no one likes a Cassandra). Sometimes the wizard needs to join the party. And sometimes the only way to spot the traps is to have a rogue on your side.

Besides: this might actually be the key to a catalysing of global coordination, planetary regeneration, and a return to conviviality. I doubt it will—but it might, and so I remain open to whatever adjacent opportunities may yet unfurl.

So that’s what I’ve been doing, and what I’m focused on ‘now’. My hope is that I might be able to steer folks along the path of least unnecessary suffering. I also remain open to surprise—there are some genuinely novel avenues of value and adjacent possibilities worth exploring.

But, as ever—we’ve got to keep our wits about us.

In addition to this I’ve been working on The School of Fox Wizardry, the book, and whatever one does when they are ‘collapse-aware’ but choosing to stay with the trouble. We’re entangled anyway, might as well dance as best we can.