This Article Will Change Your Life and Everything Else that Needs Changing

On writing for the internet in a complex world

Hello and welcome to rewilding philosophy.

In times of the metacrisis, I struggle to find a writing style that feels appropriate for our times.

I’ve observed two phenomena that likely sound familiar to you:

1. As many brilliant minds have pointed out, the internet is crowded. Attention gets swallowed by sensational content, leaving little room for nuanced discussion. We love simple, easy answers. In “Antifragile,” Nassim Nicholas Taleb argues that in politics, the simpler the message, the more popular it becomes. There is no room for ambiguity.

2. The second phenomena I have noticed is after giving talks. Event organizers often introduce me as “an expert who talks about a new approach to sustainability which is not about pointing fingers, but offers a radical new way to how we overcome the challenges. Here comes Jessica who will talk about what relationships have to do with sustainability”.

There’s a deep, almost innate human desire for solutions. We search for answers, crave them, and demand them. Yet, most of life is messy. There are no clear answers to our current problems, yet we persist in seeking simple solutions (myself included).

In online writing, this translates to the need for catchy headlines and actionable advice. Every guide on effective internet writing emphasizes offering solutions - solving a problem for the reader. The same applies to talks. Audiences arrive hoping that I’ll offer them answers, growing impatient as the talk progresses, expecting a solution to be crammed into the final 30 seconds. Until they realize that’s not what I’ll do. What they leave with, however, are more questions.

I struggle to offer solutions where none exist. We need to let go of the idea of solutions. In "Combining," Nora Bateson writes:

“A solution is a linear endpoint to a problem defined in linear causality. Complex problems do not operate within this linearity. Solutions are not what we are looking for. Solutionism is not appropriate in the complexity/systems world . . . If you look for solutions, you won’t find them because the problem identified as needing to be solved is a consequence of multiple contextual interactions. There is no hack, no five bullet points, no branded systemic graph that maps the solutions. The thinking that has produced an understanding of our world as a mechanistic, separated, or siloed system also defines our current global crises as such. Food systems, sexism, climate change, addiction, racism, economic inequality, and so on are all consequences of several hundred years of exploitation.”

We love reading about solutions: the five-step guides, the linear processes, the neatly laid-out maps. Yet, many of us have grown wary of headlines promising, “This is how we solve all our challenges: degrowth, regulated markets, or ending fossil fuels.” Even philosophical health won’t suffice. Because our philosophies are embedded in social structures, which are tied to infrastructures, which are rooted in political systems. Changing one thing means changing everything - and that’s messy.

None of these will solve the metacrisis, while at the same time, all of these are necessary to solve it.

Yet, if we continue with the same rhetoric and promises found in self-help literature - which is similarly flawed - we not only set false expectations but also perpetuate the problem by reinforcing the very mindset that created it.

Flawed expectations

We’ve been conditioned to believe that every problem has a solution. That if we just work hard enough, think smart enough, or follow the right steps, we can fix things. This is the myth of linearity, the idea that life operates like a math problem: input + effort = output. But life isn’t linear. It’s messy, interconnected, and deeply complex.

When we approach the metacrisis with this mindset, we set ourselves up for disappointment. We expect clear answers, actionable steps, and measurable outcomes. We want someone to tell us, “Do this, and everything will be okay.” But the metacrisis doesn’t work that way.

The metacrisis is marked by complexity, ambiguity and uncertainty. And all three characteristics lead to the fact that there are no easy answers. The challenges we face today didn’t begin with industrialization; they’ve been centuries in the making. While industrialization accelerated these issues, they wouldn’t exist without the worldview shaped by figures like Descartes centuries ago. We’re not dealing with a single problem with a single solution but a web of interrelated crises that defy simple fixes.

As Anne Casper recently said

“The moment you try to isolate a variable and measure it in isolation, you’ve already stripped it of the conditions that made it meaningful in the first place.”

And so, when we’re offered solutions - degrowth, renewable energy, or a shift in worldview - we’re left unsatisfied. Not because these ideas lack value (they don’t), but because they can’t deliver what we’ve been promised: a way out.

They’re pieces of the puzzle, not the whole picture. Treating them as the whole picture risks oversimplifying the problem and ignoring deeper systemic issues.

A questionable process

The process of seeking and offering solutions is equally problematic. It reinforces the very thinking that got us into this mess in the first place: the idea that we can control, predict, and fix our way out of complexity.

When we focus on solutions, we’re essentially saying, “We know what the problem is, and we know how to fix it.” But do we? The metacrisis is not a static problem; it’s a dynamic, evolving system.

What works today might not work tomorrow. What solves one problem might exacerbate another. And by focusing on solutions, we risk ignoring the deeper questions: What is the nature of the problem? How did we get here? And what does it mean to live well in a world that’s falling apart?

Moreover, the process of solutionism often leads to a kind of intellectual laziness. It allows us to offload responsibility onto experts, technologies, or systems, rather than grappling with the messy, uncomfortable reality of what’s actually happening. It lets us believe that someone, somewhere, has the answers - and all we have to do is wait for them to deliver.

At the same time, even if we don’t offer clear solutions, our actions might still make an impact somewhere down the line. As Nora Bateson would say, it might influence change on the “n-th order,” in ways that escape our awareness, with consequences we can never fully foresee or know.

A way forward

James Downie Original Oil Painting On My Way

So what do we do? How do we move forward in a world that defies easy answers?

Maybe our best option is to pray.

May we let go of the idea of solutions. Not because solutions are bad, but because they’re insufficient. Instead of asking, “What’s the solution?” may we ask, “What’s the next right step?” May we embrace uncertainty, ambiguity, and complexity. May we sit with the discomfort of not knowing.

May we shift our focus from solutions to relationships. The metacrisis is, at its core, a crisis of relationships - between humans, between humans and the more-than-human world, and between the systems we’ve created and those we depend on. To navigate this, may we cultivate deeper, more meaningful connections - with each other, with the Earth, and with ourselves.

May we redefine what it means to live well in a world that’s falling apart. May we feel in our bones that it’s not about finding the perfect solution but about learning to live with imperfection, finding joy, meaning, and purpose in the midst of chaos, embracing the messiness of life, and finding beauty in the brokenness and potential in the cracks.

May we stop looking for solutions, ask better questions, and live - really live - in the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.

But a prayer might not be enough.

Another way to embrace this is what is called “critical complexity”. Critical complexity acknowledges that the world is not a machine made up of separate, interchangeable parts but a living, breathing web of relationships. It recognizes that every problem is embedded in a larger context and that every solution creates new problems. It means letting go of the idea that we can ever fully understand or control the systems we’re part of.

AND it also means that we acknowledge our need to sometimes be reductionist - breaking things into pieces, analyzing, measuring, and predicting. And yes, offer solutions. It doesn’t throw out the baby with the bathwater - as they say - but acknowledges the necessity of reductionist approaches as strategic tools for understanding the complexity.

While critical complexity recognizes relationality, it also appreciates that breaking them down into manageable parts can be valuable.

The key difference lies in the intentional and reflective use of reductionism. Simplifications can serve a purpose, and boundaries can be drawn as neither permanent nor definitive. We can remain aware of the artificial nature of these distinctions we draw and at the same time stay open to revisiting and revising them as our understanding evolves.

This duality - between reductionism and holism - also mirrors the two halves of our brain. As Ian McGilchrist notes, the left hemisphere focuses on analysis, precision, and categorization while the right hemisphere embraces a more holistic, relational perspective, perceiving the broader interconnectedness of things. He says:

The choice we make of how we dispose our consciousness is the ultimate creative act: it renders the world what it is. It is, therefore, a moral act: it has consequences.

Critical complexity then invites us to make use of our hemispheres in tandem. The choice is a both/and.

On writing for the internet

So, a question I’m still grappling with is: How can we embrace this in our writing? How do we stay true to the messiness while ensuring our work is read? Is there a way to write compellingly without promising solutions? Is poetry - inherently relational, building on context, allowing meaning to arise from what we’ve made - the only way to do this?

In the digital space, where attention is scarce and simplicity often trumps nuance, this challenge is magnified. Writing for the internet requires engaging readers through compelling narratives and relatable insights. Yet, the more specific we are about a topic, the more we risk losing the broader context. A factual text is inherently analytical, dissected, and reduced to less than a piece of the puzzle.

I appreciate the idea of critical complexity in this context. If I don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater but remain aware that my writing is only part of a larger whole, I might add depth to my work while embracing the fluidity of understanding. And then, perhaps with sincere irony, I can promise, “This article will change your life and everything else that needs changing.”

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