Do you ever find yourself asking, "What on earth is happening to the world?"I know I do, despite my eternal optimism. So it was wonderful to attend a talk by Sarah Wilson in London last month, having just finished her latest book, ‘I Eat the Stars.’.

I've been a long-time admirer of Sarah's work — for the depth of her research and the catharsis I find in her words.

The premise of ‘I Eat the Stars’ is both confronting and strangely reassuring: we aren't simply living through a series of unrelated crises. We're witnessing the collapse of complex systems.

Climate crisis. Rising authoritarianism. AI disruption. Economic inequality. Political instability. Social fragmentation.

It can feel like everything is happening all at once because, in many ways, it is.

Drawing on conversations with more than 200 philosophers, scientists, economists, historians, poets and spiritual leaders, Sarah puts language to something many of us have sensed but struggled to articulate: that something is deeply, structurally wrong with the systems we've built.

One chapter that particularly stayed with me explored the concept of "Moloch" — the idea that so much of what we're participating in, or calling “innovation" or "evolution", is actually a collective race to the bottom, where so much is destroyed under the guise of progress.

We see Moloch everywhere:
• Algorithms optimised for attention rather than value.
• Growth pursued at any cost.
• AI advancement without fully reckoning with its human and environmental consequences.
• Consumerism fuelled by endless comparison and overconsumption.
• Political systems incentivising division over collaboration.

But surprisingly, this isn't a book about despair. It's a book about agency.

The real problem Sarah is addressing isn't the state of the world — it's our paralysis in the face of it.

We might search for villains to blame, but in reality, this moment belongs to all of us. We all play a role.

She likens humanity to adolescence: we've built incredible things without fully understanding the consequences. The next chapter of our story requires us to grow up — to take responsibility, reclaim our agency, and consciously choose how we want to shape what comes next.

It also raises an important leadership question:

If growth-at-all-costs is part of the problem, what does responsible leadership look like today — and into the future?

Perhaps the future isn't about pursuing more growth, but creating more meaningful, reparative progress.

‘I Eat the Stars’ is incredibly well researched, thought-provoking, and at times deeply uncomfortable to read. But ultimately, it's about living fully — "the great homecoming", as Sarah calls it.

I'd highly recommend it to anyone trying to make sense of the complexity of the world we're living in — and how to respond without losing their humanity (or their mind!).

A timely read.

Jacqui x