Tag Archives: fiction
The Tilt isn’t the End
I have something I brought back from Equilibria.
More than memory. More than change. Something physical, hard…and grounding.
I held that little shape in my hand today—the one they call the Gömböc. It looks like nothing special. Just a smooth, oddly cut stone. But when I placed it down crooked on the table, it shivered once, then—almost stubbornly—tipped itself upright.
No matter how I set it down, it always found its way back.
And something in me ached watching it.
Because I know what it feels like to be tilted. To be spun by grief or fear or confusion until all your angles feel wrong and your balance is lost. I’ve seen entire villages like that. Systems like that. People who never believed they could come back.
But the Gömböc doesn’t fight the tilt. It doesn’t panic.
It just remembers.
It carries its center like a secret. And no matter how the world tosses it, it returns—not because it wants to, but because it was shaped to.
That’s the lesson I think the Keepers were trying to show us.
We spend so much time trying not to fall, as if failure were final. As if imbalance means brokenness. But what if the real strength isn’t in staying upright?
What if it’s in learning how to rise, to stand again and again, until balance isn’t luck—it’s design?
The world that’s building in Equilibria won’t always stand straight.
But if it is shaped right—if we shape ourselves right—it will always know how to return.
I want to be like that little shape.
Not unbreakable.
Just unlosable.
~ Olivia
Why I Gave Olivia a Voice
“There are things I remember that I never lived. Some come to me like breath; others, like fire.”
Olivia
Olivia’s Journal
Some of you have already met Olivia. Most of you haven’t. Not yet.
Olivia’s Journal is one of the writing efforts from the Balance the Triangle project. A project I originated to explore human flourishing through questioning the disconnects between us, our institutions, and our technologies. I’ll be sharing more about that effort over time.
In her journal, Olivia carries the ache and the hope of a world in an age of fracture. And, like many of you, I’ve felt that fracture. The divide between what we know and what we are. Between futures we hope for and institutions that stumble.
I didn’t initially set out to write either the ‘YES!’ books or the upcoming Equilibria series. I set out to make sense of a world with too much noise, too little clarity, and too little space for moral language without ridicule.
My name is Chuck. And I gave Olivia a voice because I needed to hear what I could no longer see.
Why I’m Writing on Substack
I came to Substack because I appreciate the depth of this community. And I wanted to add Olivia’s voice to discussions there.
Because I believe in fundamentals. That we are more than algorithms of fear and attention. That we are people wired for care, fairness, courage, reciprocity, and more. And that we still remember how to choose wisely—not just for ourselves, but for each other.
And I believe that stories—good stories, questioning stories, and even wild and trembling stories fraught with powerful emotion, might be the only things strong enough to survive the storms swirling around us. Because we are all sense-makers, who make sense of the world through the stories we tell ourselves and each other.
What Comes Next
This newsletter isn’t just Olivia’s story. Hers is one voice. An emotional compass, if you will. Mine is another. Exploring moral wounds. Emotional hurts. Cognitive lies—and ways forward. Pondering tools and theories promising a redesign of what’s broken. Struggling with this “wicked problem” around the human wiring. cultural institutions and technologies so rapidly outgrowing our management abilities. A triangle we struggle to bring into balance.
So, a couple of times a week, Olivia raises questions through her Journal. Other times, I grapple with and learn what it means to be human. And I share that journey.
When I’m not here, you can find me—and further information—on LinkedIn.
It’s no easy task. Many others fight in these trenches. I add my voice and Olivia’s to their efforts.
Thanks for listening.
Take a look at Olivia’s reflections in her Journal on her Substack page.
OLIVIA’S JOURNAL
Breath Beneath the Stones
Today I read a story about a team of scientists exploring the Atacama Desert in Chile — one of the driest places on Earth.
They found tiny, stubborn life: microbes clinging to the underside of quartz rocks, where just enough moisture gathers to survive.
Whole invisible worlds, breathing under stones, unseen by almost everyone.
It made me stop and hold my own breath for a moment.
I remembered the hidden groves near the Breath Lakes in Equilibria.
There, small silver-rooted plants grew only in the shadows between boulders, where the mist would drift just long enough to leave a kiss of water.
We called them the Whisperlings.
DOT taught me that they existed because of one thousand nearly-invisible balances — the angle of the stone, the way the wind curled, the patience of waiting for the mist.
No one force alone kept them alive. It was everything, all at once, carefully holding its breath.
I wonder how often we forget that most of life is like that — surviving in the fragile spaces we rarely notice.
It’s easy to look at the big things — mountains, oceans, cities — and believe they’re what matter most.
But maybe it’s the unseen breath beneath the stones that keeps the world alive.
What other quiet miracles are we stepping over every day without even seeing them?
MY YES! 