I've been riding some waves lately. Waves of grief and deep sadness, which is how these feelings tend to manifest. The heart feels open, tender these days.
Nothing that one would categorise as dramatic has happened to me. No departures with loved ones, no irreversible health issues, nothing new to directly blame these feelings on.
I've just been through a phase of more than usual inner exploration practices which, for sensitive beings, means becoming more susceptible to all that we're regularly exposed to.
An earthquake, not an unfolding
Opening your heart is not a light, gentle unfolding process. More like an earthquake that sends shock waves throughout your system, a massive impact in your inner landscapes that stops you in your tracks. If you've ever fallen in love, you know the feeling.
As the heart's cracks widen, its surface separates to give way to openings that can reach your very core. And like a stream of water that suddenly finds a new way, everything starts permeating. Light floods in. Darkness floods in. An open heart doesn't come with filters.
A bumblebee sleeping on a flower, a delicious meal with my partner, swimming in the lake with my sister, the smile of a stranger on the street, waking up at 5am to the sound of a summer storm...
Beauty feels extra beautiful these days.
But no filters means no filters both ways. The heatwaves and wildfires in the Northern hemisphere, oil companies doubling profit during times of war, deadly attacks driven by extremism, disinformation and propaganda flooding social media, the general numbness and passiveness towards all this...
The pockets of dystopia around us just feel unbearable.
The spot with your name on it
As I'm trying to pull myself together and be functional in the middle of this turbulent inner state, I can't stop thinking of my own complicity with the current state of the world. Complicit in everything. The "good" and the "bad".
Seeing things through a systemic lens is a blessing when you tap into mutual becoming, thriving relationships, magical coincidences, and deep connection with all beings.
Our entanglements are wonderful when they make you feel less alone, more held, vital. Not that wonderful when they lead you to the realisation of "fuck, I'm also part of this".
Whether it's capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, colonialism or whichever other degenerative overlapping system, one way or another, you're part of it. There's a spot with your name on it. No matter if you stand there willingly, reluctantly, or obliviously to it.
Can't escape complicity
We can't just discard the uncomfortable truth of our complex and hyperconnected realities: because you are part of, you're complicit. Being part of can be an intentional choice in some cases (for example, I choose to be a European resident) and an unshakeable label in others (I was born a white female in Europe).
Either way, the complicity remains, because being part of a system is not just dependent on your awareness and conscious choice. Maybe you were born in it, maybe your ancestors set it up, maybe you got absorbed by it. And, mainly, the actions of others sustain it, to the point that it's become institutionalised and the collective mind and shared beliefs ratify your place in it.
The system is not out there; it's running next to you and through you. You are just another node in the web. There is no eject button, no scissors that would cut the thread that keeps you in connection.
Othering the systems that we are part of is an escape strategy doomed to fail. Can you shake off your whiteness by moving to a different country? I don't think so. Will you be free from capitalism on a remote island in the middle of the Pacific? You may be less impacted by it, but I doubt there are corners in the world immune to it in 2026. Probably you even carry some of it within you.
Surrendering to the fact that we can't escape something that is embedded in us seems to be the only option. Surrendering and accepting that, yeah, this is it. This is where we are.
Rejecting it will just make us more miserable, refusing to accept reality as it is, telling ourselves the self-delusion of "this has nothing to do with me".
Dystopia on methamphetamines
The frenetic rhythm of degeneration and collapse we're witnessing around us is making it harder to practice this kind of radical acceptance. Accepting that we're complicit in this dystopia on methamphetamines is not easy.
The absurdity is what kills me.
The paradoxes are so twisted that I can't tell anymore if that's crazy or I'm crazy. All that once felt true and grounded today is scattered in bubbles that pop just by looking at them. Integrity sold out everywhere, ethics is a word algorithms boost from time to time, and values are so shallow they blow away like dandelion seeds at the slightest breeze.
Where did the sacred go? Probably to the same place where our collective inner compass went: in exile.
Making sense feels counterintuitive and pointless. Disorder reigns, chaos takes over. And we're right there in it, complicit.
Pathways forward
Are you going to dance with the system's rhythm, or are you going to go into flight, fight, freeze?
This is where I find myself at. And, if you're still reading, maybe this is the question you're holding as well.
I don't really see flight, fight, freeze as a viable option. I'm aware enough of the system's entanglements to understand I can't escape it. I already broke free from the myth of merit through effort and pushing hard, another tale from the capitalist book. I have zero violent cells in my body. And I care way too much to freeze.
So dance, I guess, will be.
Flowing in dystopia makes me feel nauseous, honestly. Especially when it feels like things are spinning more and more into nightmare material.
But how else are we going to design, apply and present changes if it's not from within?
Transforming complicity
That spot with your name on it will be a curse or an opportunity. Depends on how you frame it: relationships in degenerative systems may be unequal because of power and hierarchies, but they are always a two-way street.
You can stand there letting the threads infuse you with ideas of progress and thrivability that deep down you know are fake. Or you can embrace your spot, receive those same ideas, and return critical thinking, challenging presence, seeds of alternatives.
The spectrum of response is huge: from Trojan horse to quiet disruptor. How much room to move you have in systems designed to keep us in place and not cause trouble will depend on your personal situation. Whatever is available to you will be good enough. Weight and responsibility are always shared through a system: whether the intention is to strengthen it or erode it.
Maybe there's no need to be at the centre of the system; maybe you feel in a better position if you slowly make your way to the edges. Still connected, still part of, still touched by dystopia and being complicit, while making invitations to collectively explore different shapes and dynamics.
Think of a flock of birds in flight. It's not the birds at the centre that redirect the whole formation, it's the ones at the edges, and the rest follows.
You have agency in your spot; make the best use of it.
Chaos as fuel
Even when making sense feels pointless, the Wisdom of Life stands. 3.8 billion years of inherited wisdom, and this too runs through our veins.
A note from her book: living systems don't resist disorder, chaos, entropy. Living systems metabolise chaos. A cell, a forest, a body all stay organised only by constantly processing energy and letting the old structures go. This is what physicists call a dissipative structure: order, coherence that exists only because energy is flowing through it.
Chaos isn't the enemy of order here. It's the fuel. What we see in the systems we're part of as chaos maybe is the necessary collapsing force that makes the next arrangement possible. Maybe how we are and what we do in our spot is directly channelling that chaos.
After all, isn't it us who are trying to bring disorder into the apparent order of the systems we'd like to change?
Diversion ahead (?)
At times, it may feel that we're on a course of total destruction. And I think that, indeed, we're not on a path that looks very prosperous.
A hard pill to swallow is that what we, humans, interpret as dystopia is, in an ecosystem, just a phase of change. Ecosystems don't judge; they just process. Collapse and reorganisation are morally neutral mechanisms in biology, not a tragedy. And still, from where we stand inside it, it doesn't feel that way.
Systems change for humans doesn't just require awareness, surrender, agency. It also calls us to nurture self and collective compassion to navigate the grief of collapse, so that we don't get crushed by the emotional weight.
I believe that we're still going to see more dystopia emerging and I believe that the course of this river can be diverted.
Humans engineered the current systems; humans can engineer alternatives to them.
What is clear is that we'll have to continue flowing down the river if we want a chance at diverting it.
See you at the edges, fellow chaos-agent.
Image: Sintonia, by Juan Genovés, 2010
Originally published on Substack (August 8, 2026): https://juditsaez.substack.com/p/complicit-in-dystopia