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Dear friends,

I wrote this (below) before ICE killed another citizen exercising their Constitutional rights. Times are bad, really BAD. I’m trying to manage my mental health..it feels like doomsday, perhaps you share those feelings.

Every so often, a year starts to glow in the collective imagination.

People start circling it in conversation. Whispering about it in podcasts. Pointing to it in essays, charts, spiritual spaces, tech forums, economic forecasts, and late-night “something is changing” conversations.

Right now, that year is 2026.

You may have heard it framed in mystical terms. Or apocalyptic ones. Or techno-utopian ones. Or in the vague language of “a shift,” “a reset,” “a timeline jump,” or “a consciousness upgrade.”

Let me say this gently and clearly:

2026 is not a magical finish line.

It’s not a doomsday.

It’s not an awakening switch that flips overnight.

It’s something both simpler and more demanding.

It’s a hinge.

And we are already standing in it.

We Are Living Through a Historical Transition (Those Are Rare)

History doesn’t change in smooth, polite lines. It changes in lurches.

There are long stretches where the rules of life feel stable, even if they’re unfair. And then there are shorter, more turbulent periods where the rules themselves stop working.

Think:

• The American and French Revolutions
• The years around World War I and World War II
• The 1960s and early 70s
• The fall of the Soviet Union

In those moments, people didn’t wake up one morning and say, “Ah yes, we are now in a historic inflection point.”

They just felt disoriented. Polarized. Anxious. Exhausted. Unmoored. And strangely aware that the old story was dying, even if the new one hadn’t been written yet.

That’s where we are now.

What many people are sensing about 2026 is not a single event.

They’re sensing that we are moving from the breakdown phase into the rebuilding phase of a civilizational transition.

The Old Systems Are Not Just Failing. They’re Losing Legitimacy.

This is the deeper issue.

It’s not just that:

• Politics feels broken
• Media feels untrustworthy
• Institutions feel hollow
• Work feels surreal
• Technology feels destabilizing
• Truth feels slippery

It’s that fewer and fewer people believe the old structures deserve their loyalty.

That is always the moment before major change.

For a long time, systems can function even when they are unjust, as long as people still believe in them enough to participate.

But when belief collapses?

History moves.

The AI Factor: We Are Being Forced to Ask What a Human Is

There’s another layer to this moment that makes it different from previous eras.

For the first time, we are not just reorganizing politics or economics.

We are renegotiating what it means to be human.

When machines can:

• Write
• Compose
• Design
• Diagnose
• Teach
• Persuade
• Simulate companionship
• Replace large categories of work

…we are forced into questions we’ve managed to avoid for centuries:

What is a human for, if not just productivity?

What gives life meaning, if not just output?

What is dignity, when efficiency is no longer the highest value?

What is truth, when reality itself can be generated?

Many futurists — not mystics, not astrologers — point to 2025–2027 as the period when this stops being theoretical and becomes socially unavoidable.

Spiritually speaking, this is often described as a “consciousness shift.”

Practically speaking, it’s an identity crisis at the species level.

So Why Does 2026 Keep Coming Up?

Because patterns across many different systems converge there:

• Economic cycles
• Political cycles
• Generational cycles
• Technological adoption curves
• Cultural legitimacy cycles

2024–2025 looked like escalation and breakdown.

2026 looks like the beginning (or maybe the end). 🤷🏼‍♀️

I’m out of words..

Take care of yourself!

Julie Bolejack, MBA