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The Odysseus Files, Issue 3
Chaos, Collapse, & Finding Your Ithaca, Part 3
Apocalypse Rising
[Note: this is Part 3 of a miniseries within the broader Odysseus Files called “Chaos, Collapse, & Finding Your Ithaca.” These miniseries will group broad topics thematically, helping you connect the dots between them more easily.]
We left off last week with a wave of destruction that had swept across the Aegean and Near East.
Civilizations overthrown. Cities burned. Trade disrupted. Populations seething and in decline.
The sophisticated world order of its day was gone, ripped to shreds by a cataclysmic accumulation of events:
Climate change, that triggered a multi-century long drought
Famine, caused by drought, and likely resulting in the many migrations of the period
Earthquakes, which caused the destruction of several of the sites damaged during this time
Restive populations on the move, in many cases forced out of their own homelands, initiating multiple waves of invasion and resettlement
Disruption of the international trade networks so vital to sustaining the palace economies of the time, including the production of bronze
Many societies disappeared in their entirety: the Mycenaeans in mainland Greece, the Minoans on Crete, the Hittites in Anatolia (modern Turkey), the Mitanni in northern Mesopotamia (northern Iraq and Syria), and the Kassite Babylonians.
Others were weakened, ultimately taking centuries to reemerge as powers: Egypt, the Neo-Assyrian empire, and, to some extent, the Canaanites (whose survivors would go on to make up the Phoenicians based in present-day Lebanon).
As advanced as these societies were, any one of the factors of collapse above should have been survivable. But together, the sheer amount of pressure exerted on the international system (one made fragile through the interdependence of the separate powers) caused a domino-like effect.
This story serves as a warning for our own times. Here’s why.
History as a Helix
The oft-quoted refrain that “history repeats itself” is misguided.
Every culture is unique, every society making its own choices about how it thrives or fails in our world. Response to chaos - determined by the resiliency within a given society - varies.
Fields like technology, philosophy, science, literature, and the arts all build on what’s come before, creating a cumulative effect that makes each tomorrow unlike any yesterday.
(Assuming one’s history is preserved enough to know what came before. A mark of so-called “dark ages” that have occurred throughout history is that a society loses a sense of their past, forgetting what came before. The effect is almost like having to start over and rebuild your community’s knowledge base.)
That being said, history does reveal patterns and trends that occur across various time spans - much like wavelengths.
To balance between these two seemingly contrasting ideas - of history as both a repeating rhythm and a force forging ahead - it helps to picture a helix.
Viewed from the side, you can clearly differentiate between each circling strand of the thread making up the helix.
This is the individual, unique context that each society encounters: the technological, social, political, and environmental setting within which they sit, that differentiates them from every society that came before.
For example, today’s Russia is not the exact same as the Soviet Russia of the USSR, nor the Russian empire of the Kievan Rus (the Scandinavian elites who dominated the Slavic populations of the Russian and Ukrainian steppes during the Middle Ages).
Viewed from the top down, however, you can see that each strand of the thread making up the helix overlaps with the strand directly underneath it. This is the common themes that reoccur.
In the example above, we can point out the structures that were similar between these different snapshots of Russian history: political ideology, geographic concerns that create security issues, the psychology and value systems of Russian people (to an extent).
Stepping back, we can see these rhythms at work:
Agricultural cycles - within seasons
Economic ups and downs, ecosystem replenishment or depletion - within years
Cultural value shifts - a few decades
Rise and fall of kingdoms and empires - decades to centuries
Significant climate shifts (think ice ages, or North Africa drying out and losing its forests) - centuries to millennia
In all of these cases, to quote the law of gravity, when something goes up, it must come down. An economic boom will eventually be followed by a bust. A rising nation will eventually decline.
The helix model of history allows us to 1) identify our differences from those who came before, yet 2) maintain a sense of continuity with the past, and 3) identify (in a broad sense, of course) what shifts are likely to be around the corner.
And when we anticipate something, we can prepare for it. And once we’re prepared, even if the shift takes longer than expected, we can still benefit from the preparation.
But what about post-collapse? What happens when the thing you’ve prepared for actually hits?
Adapting In a New World
The archaeological record of sites affected by the Bronze Age collapse is highly inconsistent.
In some cases, we have cities clearly damaged by earthquake, but not by invader.
In others, only the elite-controlled center and defensive structures of a city are burned, with the rest left intact.
Sometimes, violence is evident, but the city is clearly resettled by the previous inhabitants immediately afterwards (except for the elites).
Then there are sites that show an influx of new settlers (the same as some of the invaders/migrants), arriving in waves, intermingling with the current (or former) inhabitants.
The primary learning from this is, of course, that there were many different factors involved.
But another takeaway is that, in every site, it’s the elite who disappear.
Whether a given city faces an invasion, famine, internal rebellions, natural disasters, or economic collapse, the result is that either the site is abandoned for centuries (because the people fled to the countryside) or it’s almost immediately resettled by the former inhabitants (possibly alongside new migrants).
But in neither case do the former power structures reemerge. The palatial economies and centralized political control are gone.
In their place, there’s space for a new world order to emerge. For centuries, power vacuums across the eastern Mediterranean seaboard were replaced by small kingdoms and independent city-states that emerged from the shadows of the great powers that preceded them.
In southern Canaan, the Israelites and Philistines (one of the notorious “Sea Peoples” who had sacked cities across the Levant and had only just been beaten by Egypt) replaced local Canaanites. The remaining Canaanites would emerge in modern day Lebanon as the Phoenicians.
In northern Syria and Turkey, the Hittites were replaced by small neo-Hittite kingdoms and the Phrygians (a people from the northern Balkans).
The Greeks that would later produce the classical powers of Athens, Sparta, Corinth, and Thebes emerged from the shadow of the Mycenaeans.
When the neo-Assyrians appeared at the end of the 10th century B.C., they faced an open slate across northern Mesopotamia from which they could rebuild their empire.
The Elamites from south of the Zagros Mountains in Iran grew their power base at the expense of the Kassite Babylonians.
This post-collapse period saw the rise of such developments as the alphabet, the widespread use of iron, monotheism, and, eventually, democracy.
Another trend that emerged was the resurrection of trade routes - this time by individual entrepreneurs or small trading coalitions (like the independently-operating city-states of the Phoenicians).
Some scholars have gone so far as to suggest that the years post-collapse saw a phase of decentralization that benefited the individual entrepreneur and merchant.
One such historian describes the world of the eastern Mediterranean at this time as not one of “sea raiders, pirates, and freebooting mercenaries” but of “enterprising merchants and traders, exploiting new economic opportunities, new markets, and new sources of raw materials.” (James Muhly, 1992, cited in Eric Cline, 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed.)
The lesson in all of this?
That within chaos, collapse, and change, there is opportunity.
And that those opportunities can best be discovered and exploited when you have the resilience and vision to do so.
Takeaways
This miniseries, “Chaos, Collapse, and Finding Your Ithaca,” culminates around this idea:
That thriving in the midst of change is possible
That doing so requires the ability to step back from the grind of day-to-day life long enough to recognize opportunities
And that being positioned to take advantage of opportunities comes from a place of resilience
Which can only be arrived at by having the foresight and vision to think big and get intentional about what you’re building in your life and business
This emphasis on vision and foresight is what sets the intellectual entrepreneur apart.
Rather than being reactive, jumping from one thing to the next, and getting overwhelmed by chaos, the intellectual entrepreneur builds from the ground up.
It doesn’t mean all the pieces fall into place right away; not by a long shot. Your vision will evolve. Your house will “settle” into its foundation. But the key is that you begin with the foundation.
It’s the difference between Achilles - reactive and impulsive - and Odysseus - calm and calculating.
This “intellectual” approach to entrepreneurship is about slowing down in a world that is speeding up. About building for decades, not just the next quarter.
It’s a mindset shift that seeks to confront the lack of sustainability in our systems, institutions, and world.
And it starts with creating a vision of where you’re going. Your Ithaca.
P.S. - I help entrepreneurs who want to build businesses that align with their strengths, values, & passion create & execute on a vision for their brand.
Beginning with vision and aligning everything else to that creates the greatest conditions for building a sustainable business that is resilient to change while creating the most impact.
If this resonates with you, in October I’ll be opening the doors to a new coaching program designed to help you get clarity on your vision, craft a brand born from your conviction, & create a roadmap that lets you move forward with confidence.
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