· 14 min read
Modern civilization is caught in a struggle between power and life. Power—expressed through technology, economic expansion, and control—has become the dominant force shaping progress. Yet, this relentless pursuit has come at a cost: the erosion of connection, meaning, and wisdom. In the quest for efficiency and dominance, life itself has been reduced to something to be optimized, measured, and controlled, rather than truly experienced and understood.
A crucial dimension of this conflict lies in the way we think. Modern society is increasingly dominated by left-hemisphere thinking, which prioritizes control, categorization, and measurable efficiency over holistic understanding, deep connection, and the sacred. This imbalance has created a world that is materially powerful yet existentially impoverished—anxious, fragmented, and disconnected from the deeper rhythms of existence.
As Charles Eisenstein explains In our search for meaning, we ended up losing it.
"The concept of efficiency — how much one can accomplish per unit of time (or per dollar, etc.) — requires a quantitative numerator as well as a denominator. It requires a metric. Therefore, it tells us nothing about results we cannot quantify or measure. When we gear our society around efficiency, we produce more and more of the measurable, while the immeasurable, the qualitative, and the things we don’t think to measure drain away. Bedazzled by quantitative abundance, we might not be able to see what is lost, but we can definitely feel its absence."
This pattern is not new. Throughout history, societies that prioritized power without wisdom have collapsed, blinded by their own short-term successes and long-term blindness. Today, we see the same patterns unfolding—rising anxiety, fragmentation, and disconnection from the natural world.
The challenge before us is whether we can shift our perspective in time—moving away from a world driven solely by power and control toward one where life, wisdom, and meaning take precedence. This essay will explore how we arrived at this point and, more importantly, what we can do to redefine progress—not as dominance over life, but as a deeper understanding of our place within it.
A crisis of meaning
We are living in a crisis of meaning. It is not just a climate crisis, an economic crisis, or a political crisis—it is a holy crisis, one that cuts to the very core of our existence. Our separation from nature has funneled us into this moment, a point where we are trying to fix a broken system with the same thinking that led us here.
We have been conditioned to believe that more complexity, more technology, and more growth will solve the problems we face. But this mindset—the one that insists on expansion as the only path forward—is precisely what created the crisis in the first place. The very tools we use to “solve” our problems reinforce the logic of accumulation, extraction, and control. We are trapped in a loop, unable to imagine an alternative because we are still operating within the same framework that has dominated civilization for thousands of years.
At the heart of this crisis is a fundamental misunderstanding of surplus—its role in shaping human choices, its power in expanding Lotka’s wheel of energy accumulation, and its consequences for how societies structure themselves. The shift from survival to surplus was not just a shift in material wealth but a shift in how we relate to one another and to the world itself.
Surplus and the expansion of Lotka’s Wheel
Every living system is bound by energy. Lotka’s wheel, the concept that energy accumulation determines the expansion of life, is what drives evolution, ecosystems, and civilizations alike. In human history, the moment we began storing surplus energy, we expanded Lotka’s wheel in a way that had never been done before.
Surplus began with agriculture, when humans learned to cultivate the earth and store surplus energy from the sun in farmed food. This allowed us to produce more nutrients than they immediately needed. This breakthrough fostered permanent settlements, cities, specialization, and social hierarchies, fueling a cycle of innovation that further boosted the surplus and set the stage for the Industrial Revolution. Over centuries we developed tools that allowed us to harness wood, wind, and water for crafts and commerce, paving the way for fossil fuels—coal and oil—which ultimately supercharged our capacity for resource accumulation, yet deepened our disconnection from labor, community, and the living systems that sustain us.
How surplus changed our relationships
When we stored more than we immediately needed, we gained choices—choices that allowed us to settle, to build, and to specialize. But just as surplus gave us the ability to stay in one place, it also gave us the choice to disconnect. The moment we could rely on stored energy—rather than direct relationships with nature and the group, we gained the ability to move, to abandon, to separate.
In early societies, connections were preserved through necessity. The group ensured survival, and land was not something one could “own” but something one belonged to. But with surplus, the dynamic shifted: one could accumulate, store, and control energy independent of the group. This simple shift introduced the potential for hierarchy. Surplus became the basis of power, and when power could be accumulated, it could also be enforced.
The separation that led to accumulation
The key moment in history was not just the ability to store surplus—it was the point when surplus became the dominant organizing principle of society. What began as a way to ensure survival became a way to out-compete others. Instead of using surplus to strengthen connections, it was increasingly used to secure advantage.
Once surplus was enforceable—through property, through debt, through labor—it became the primary means of structuring society. Culture shifted from cooperation to competition, from connection to control. The ability to accumulate was no longer just a choice; it became a necessity for survival in a world where surplus dictated power.
The consequences of this shift are still shaping our world today. The logic of accumulation underpins everything—from economic systems to resource extraction to the very way we measure success. We no longer see ourselves as part of a living system but as managers of an endless game of expansion. And in this game, we have lost sight of the most important thing: what actually matters.
The Modern Crisis: when choice becomes a trap
In theory, surplus should provide more freedom, more autonomy, more ability to choose. And yet, in the modern world, choice often feels like a burden rather than a liberation. The more we accumulate, the more we are locked into a system that demands perpetual growth.
What was once an opportunity has become a compulsion. The choices we gained through surplus have been narrowed into an economic framework: we must work to consume, we must consume to survive, and we must survive within a system that prioritizes expansion over well-being. We have built a civilization where the only acceptable choices are those that sustain the logic of accumulation.
This is why the dominant solutions to the crises we face are fundamentally flawed. Whether it is “green growth,” carbon offsetting, or technological fixes, they all operate under the assumption that we can expand our way out of collapse. But this is an illusion. The same forces that created the problem cannot be the ones that solve it.
Reclaiming connection: shrinking the wheel of production
If we are to escape this cycle, we must shrink the wheel of accumulation. This does not mean rejecting progress—it means redefining what progress actually means.
Rather than seeking to accumulate ever more surplus, we must shift toward a culture that prioritizes relationships, reciprocity, and sufficiency over extraction and expansion. This requires:
- Redefining Value – Moving away from material accumulation as the measure of success and toward a model that values well-being, relationships, and ecological balance.
- Resisting Manufactured Scarcity – Recognizing that many of the scarcities we experience (housing, food, resources) are artificially created to maintain systems of accumulation.
- Rebuilding Community Resilience – Strengthening local systems of support, cooperation, and regenerative practices.
- Rebalancing Analytical and Intuitive Thinking – Restoring the connection between reason and intuition, between knowledge and wisdom, between mind and hand.
By shrinking our dependence on extractive systems, we do not lose progress—we reclaim true choice. We begin to live on our own terms, rather than those dictated by a system that only values expansion.
The return to meaning
This is, ultimately, a crisis of meaning. The reason modern life feels hollow, disconnected, and stressful is not because we lack material wealth—it is because we have lost our ability to define value outside of accumulation.
When we step outside the structures of power that dictate our choices, we rediscover what actually brings fulfillment: connection, presence, and belonging. We begin to see that the world does not have to be organized around competition and control but can instead be built on reciprocity, care, and enoughness. This is not about going backward—it is about going beyond. It is about recognizing that true freedom does not come from more choices within the system but from the ability to reject the system’s logic entirely.
To reclaim meaning, we must close the loop. We must return to a world where surplus is not a means of control but a tool for shared well-being. A world where energy is not hoarded but cycled, where land is not owned but lived with, where power is not accumulated but distributed. To move beyond an extractive logic, we must recognize how our daily habits and the forces vying for our attention shape what we come to value. The modern attention economy does not merely reflect our preferences—it molds them. Understanding how repeated actions solidify into values is crucial if we are to rebuild a culture of connection, reciprocity, and care.
How to reclaim meaning
Values are not fixed internal principles that precede action—they emerge through repeated behaviors. The more consistently we act in a certain way, the more those actions solidify into habits, then into character traits, and eventually into the core of our identity. This means that rather than thinking our way into new values, we act our way into them.
This insight is particularly urgent in an era dominated by the attention economy, where digital platforms systematically manipulate what we focus on. Our values are not only shaped by what we pay attention to, but also by how we engage with the world. If we want to cultivate better values such as— sustainable stewardship, interconnectedness, and care for all beings—we must recognize how the mechanisms shaping our attention can either be weaponized for division or harnessed to drive meaningful change.
Perception shapes reality: the science of Attention and Action
Scientific research has long suggested that observation influences behavior. In quantum mechanics, the famous double-slit experiment shows that particles behave differently when observed, hinting at a fundamental principle: attention is not passive—it actively shapes reality. While this phenomenon does not directly translate to human psychology, cognitive science supports the broader claim that attention sculpts our perception of the world.
We do not passively absorb values from our environment; rather, they emerge from what we repeatedly do. Studies in neuroscience show that repeated actions form new neural pathways, meaning that habitual behaviors literally rewire our brains. This means that if we want to change our values, we must change how we act first.
This insight has great implications in the modern world, where our attention is constantly being hijacked by algorithms designed to maximize engagement. In this context, what we choose to focus on is not just a personal decision—it is a battleground where our values are shaped, often without our awareness.
The attention economy: how values are engineered
The attention economy is built on a simple but powerful principle: engagement is maximized by exploiting the strongest human emotions, particularly fear and anger. Digital platforms prioritize content that triggers outrage because it increases screen time and interaction. This algorithmic feedback loop doesn’t just influence what we see—it influences who we become.
One striking example is the rise of toxic masculinity in online spaces. Algorithms, indifferent to ethics, learned that content promoting hyper-aggression, dominance, and misogyny generated high engagement. As a result, young men were repeatedly exposed to these ideas, not as passive observers, but as active participants—liking, commenting, sharing, and forming communities around them. Over time, these repeated actions shaped their values. What began as online content consumption turned into identity formation.
This is the same mechanism that Donald Trump exploited to gain political power, mobilizing angry young men to win the elections. By weaponizing tribalism, he encouraged people to act on their anger—through protests (January 6th), online mobilization (Andrew Tate), and ideological affiliation(FOX news). As individuals engaged in these behaviors, their political identities hardened. They weren’t simply adopting a set of beliefs; they were reinforcing values through repeated action, making them deeply embedded traits.
But if values can be hijacked for division, they can also be reshaped for collective well-being. The very mechanisms that fuel toxicity can be reclaimed to cultivate pro-social values.
Fear and anger can be powerful motivators—if used for good
Fear and anger are not inherently destructive; they are evolutionary tools for survival and transformation. Throughout history, movements for justice have harnessed these emotions to drive action. Fear of ecological collapse has mobilized millions to fight for climate justice. Outrage at systemic injustice has fueled civil rights movements. The difference between destructive and constructive uses of fear and anger lies in how they are directed.
- Destructive fear and anger are used to divide, isolate, and entrench people in defensive postures, leading to radicalization and tribalism.
- Constructive fear and anger are used to motivate, unify, and catalyze action in service of collective wellbeing.
This means that rather than rejecting fear and anger as negative forces, we should strategically channel them into actions that cultivate values of care, responsibility, and solidarity. The same algorithms that drive division can be redesigned to promote engagement with pro-social content. Instead of passively allowing technology to dictate what captures our attention, we can actively create systems that encourage people to take meaningful action toward positive transformation.
Collective action and altruism
According to E.O. Wilson,
“an altruistic individual has a worse chance of survival than a selfish individual, but a group of altruists has a better chance of survival than a group of selfish individuals.”
This principle underscores why collective action for systemic change is not just a moral imperative—it is an evolutionary advantage. Communities that prioritize empathy, mutual aid, and shared responsibility are more resilient and adaptable, especially in times of crisis. By organizing together, we can overcome the limitations of individual self-interest and create environments that nurture collective well-being.
Acting our way into a better future
If values are shaped by action, then we must create conditions where people are encouraged to act in ways that foster generosity, empathy, and responsibility for the well-being of all beings. It is not enough to tell people to “think differently.” The most effective way to shift values is to design environments where people behave differently—and, through repeated action, come to embody new ways of being.
Some practical ways to do this include:
- Creating communities that normalize pro-social behavior. Just as toxic masculinity gained traction through strong peer reinforcement, positive values can be embedded through collective participation in generosity, care, and mutual aid.
- Reclaiming the attention economy. Activists, designers, and policymakers must recognize that the battle for attention is a battle for values. By making pro-social engagement as “sticky” or compelling as destructive outrage, we can shift the cultural tide.
- Embedding action-based transformation into education. Rather than merely teaching values in the abstract, education systems should prioritize experiential learning—getting students to act on values first so that they become ingrained habits.
The point is this: It is easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of acting. This is true for individuals, societies, and even entire digital ecosystems. If we want a world driven by wisdom over power, we must first act in ways that cultivate these “light Triad values, Sustainable stewardship, interconnectedness and respect for all beings—until they become traits we embody, not just ideas we discuss.
In the attention economy, the most dangerous mistake is to assume that our values are entirely self-determined. They are shaped by what we do, what we engage with, and where we direct our attention. By reclaiming these mechanisms, we can move beyond passive consumption and actively shape the world we want to live in.
How collective action opens us to wisdom
Ultimately, dismantling the grip of power requires more than intelligence alone—it demands the collective wisdom born of shared action. When we come together in empathy, reciprocity, and mutual care, our behaviors shape values that transcend narrow self-interest and spark deeper humility. Acknowledging what we do not know is precisely what empowers us to build communities resilient enough to question power’s illusions and rediscover meaning beyond mere accumulation. In recognizing our interdependence, we transform competition into cooperation, and control into connection—allowing life, in its richest sense, to prevail.
illuminem Voices is a democratic space presenting the thoughts and opinions of leading Sustainability & Energy writers, their opinions do not necessarily represent those of illuminem.
