How long do I have before writing ‘Happy New Year’ is gauche and annoying?
Bah. If it’s one thing you can count on me for, it’s to resist convention… Happy 2026 to all!
As some of you have likely noticed, I spent nearly the entire final months of ‘25 away from this newsletter. It’s my annual practice to lean hard into both the darkness and the light of the season, willingly captivated by the waning daylight hours and the enchantments of the holidays.
We work hard around here to celebrate all of the above, and to resist buying into the collective angst that seems to build year-over-year. It’s not easy, but we persist and improve. This year felt just right and best ever.
Most celebratory to me personally, though—also invigorating, mystical and supremely exciting—is our common turning of a corner. A real one, not just the flipping of our Gregorian calendar. It’s our veering back around for another yearly spin together, sling-shotting the sun that so graciously supports the planet we’re bound to.
Feel as we may about everything happening (or not happening) here on Earth, the sun abides. Without judgment, without pause.
Nature, under which the sun is only a walk-on, is in fact wholly apathetic to our shenanigans. She will survive us, we will never match her resourcefulness, and we will surely never understand her complexity.
As I’ve felt the whiplashing of another typical Michigan winter around these parts, the snow and sub-zero temperatures followed within days by a full melt and warm winds, I’ve found great comfort, and inspiration really, in nature’s general rebuffing of our species.
Certainly not immune to our injuries, but stubborn to the point of indifference, Nature takes it on the chin, and then goes about her business of adapting, changing, rewriting the rules.
Should we all be anywhere near as wise.
I realize I come by this admiration easily. I make change for a living, so am predisposed to respect, embrace and advocate for evolution. But I also recognize the very heavy burden we all carry, that of our genetic demand to resist the unknown.
It used to be that what remained unseen could kill us. Nowadays, the mystery alone keeps us small and stagnant.
And so we suffer. Indiscriminately and constantly. Fighting always, against one thing or many, or countless. Against the tidal threats that seem inexhaustible, coming from every direction and at every effing hour.
But what happens when we resist the urge to react? Not even always and perhaps only on occasion, choosing change over combat? Yes, often these two are necessary co-conspirators. But there is a clear default mode so many of us blindly, and legitimately, sync with in times, years, eras of overwhelm.
In The Anxious Generation, it’s what Jonathan Haidt redefined as defense mode versus discover mode, explaining how, “across species, the default setting of the overall (behavioral) system depends on… evolutionary history and expected environment.”
“Animals that evolved with little daily risk of sudden death (such as top predators in a food chain, or herbivores on an island with no predators) often seem serene and confident. They are willing to get close to humans. Their default setting is discover mode, although they will shift into defend mode if attacked. In contrast, animals such as rabbits and deer, which evolved in the presence of constant predation, are skittish; they are quick to bolt and run. Their default setting is defend mode, and they shift into discover mode only slowly and tentatively when they perceive that the environment is unusually safe.”
I believe, and have witnessed first hand, that we have much more control of our own behavioral modes than we think we do.
I’m so sure of it, I’ll be dedicating much of my writing and mentoring work in the next year(s) to the advancement of what I see as an evolutionary opportunity, available to all, exclusive to none: that we can choose discovery over defense.
We can rebalance our collective equilibrium—through activating our constructive creativity and ingenuity while purposefully denying the threats that inhibit us.
This is not a goal borne of privilege, but of humanness.
We can each and all make different decisions, by the hour, on how we’re spending our resources; our physical and intellectual labor, attention and intention, emotional and monetary currencies.
AI has quickly forced the issue, but we’ve been on approach to this particular crossroads for longer than maybe anyone is intellectually capable of fully quantifying. We need to decide, and like… yesterday, not only what makes us human, but also how we act like it.
Who do we want to be, as individuals and as a global clan? What do we value, in ourselves and others, and how do we support the change we both fear and desperately need?
These are big questions, but they don’t need to be heavy. As goes the progress itself, we also get to decide the tone of our inquiry—if we approach the Fire Swamp with practical curiosity and confidence, or reactivity and terror.
We get to choose if we travel under unnecessary weight, having anxiously overpacked, or with the agility and nimbleness of a body built for resilience.
Big Tech doesn’t own innovation, by the way. Nature does, and she models her strategies daily. Perhaps the greatest choice available to us is in our willingness to follow her lead.
In my ongoing commitment to walk the talk, I’ve got some big changes coming to this newsletter in the coming months, so please stay close and with all hopes, curious too. I’ll be bringing some new and different offerings to this community, and with it, next chances for us all to create and innovate together.
Before I go, feels like I need to get one more out of my system… Happy New Year, friends!
Wishing you early fortitude in this year of the fire horse. Let’s fuel up and get to work.
Opportunity is screaming our name.
Bree Stilwell 