Daily Brief: Chaos Feels Personal. But This Is a Pattern We’ve Lived Before

A cultural analysis of recent chaos—from the Pope’s death to new global alliances—and why it’s not collapse, but the next step in a generational reset.

Way Yuhl

Apr 21, 2025

In today’s email

🕊️ The Pope is gone, but not hope
🇨🇳 China threatens retaliation—but it's expected
🤝 Russia and Iran deepen ties—but that’s not new
🧠 Why this feels like collapse—but isn’t
📚 Book of the Week: The Fourth Turning Is Here
📱 Cultural Perspective on TikTok
🗳️ Poll: Are we headed for breakdown—or breakthrough?

The sky is falling.
The Pope is dead.
China is warning the world.
Russia is partnering for its new empire

Yawn, been there, done that.
It’s the end of one era—and the start of another.

We are living through a moment that feels chaotic because it is.
While chaos itself is random (that’s its very definition), it is expected. It’s a pattern, cyclical, and we know what’s coming next.

The death of leaders. The rise of new power blocs. The collapse of old moral orders.
It’s all part of what historians Strauss and Howe called The Fourth Turning, a generational reset that breaks institutions, shifts global norms, and redefines leadership.

This isn’t the apocalypse.
It’s the reckoning before the rebuild.

Cultural Dimensions Overview

To understand this week’s news, we need to see it not as fragmentation, but as transformation.

Institutional Collapse vs. Cultural Rebirth
The death of Pope Francis isn’t a harbinger of things to come or a sign of the end times. It’s the end of an era and a power vacuum that needs to be filled.
Direct Threats vs. Global Realignment
China’s warnings sound ominous. However, they follow a cultural signaling logic, not impulsive or rash actions.
Partnerships of Convenience vs. Long-Term Reordering
Russia and Iran deepening ties isn’t new, it’s a strategic adjustment in a global system that’s rebalancing itself.

The News

🕊️ Pope Francis Dies at 88

Cultural Lens: Institutional Collapse vs. Rebirth

Pope Francis, known for his humility and progressive leadership, passed away in Rome after a 12-year papacy that redefined the role of the Church in modern society. His death marks the symbolic end of a stabilizing moral voice on the world stage.

It’s the loss of a unifying figure, and a reminder that all institutions go through decline before they are rebuilt.

The question the world asks is, will the conclave choose a kind, moral, progressive leader similar to Pope Francis or revert to a more theologically conservative, doctrinally strict, and institutionally rigid leader similar to Pope Benedict XVI?

➡️ Read the full story

🇨🇳 China Warns Against US Trade Deals

Cultural Lens: Direct Communication

China, typically an indirect communicator, is warning other nations not to form trade deals that undermine Beijing’s interests with the US. Beijing's directness indirectly signals that China is prepared to take action.

These warnings follow a pattern of China’s growing power and taking advantage of US President Trump’s dismantling of US global power and influence. It’s not reactionary, it’s choreography.

➡️ Read the full story

🤝 Russia Ratifies Strategic Partnership with Iran

Cultural Lens: Realignment, Not Rebellion

Russia and Iran have formalized their alliance. The West calls it a threat. But from a cultural perspective, it’s a classic case of pragmatic realignment, two isolated states seeking influence in a world shifting away from US-led frameworks.

This is nothing new. The first Russian Empire took steps to partner with Iran (Persia at the time) under the Tsars in the mid-1800s and the Soviet Union in the mid-1960s.

It’s the third Turning for Russia.

➡️ Read the full story

Why This Matters

Collapse always feels personal when you’re living through it. But this is what everyone misses:

Crisis is not the end of history—it’s the reset of it.

Americans, in particular, should be encouraged. Once this era of crisis has passed, the US will be a stronger, better nation. It happened in the 1770s, after the Revolutionary War, democracy took hold. Again, in the 1860s, after the Civil War, America became a unified industrial nation. In the 1940s, after WWII, America transformed into the global hegemon. What will America become after the 2020s?

It’s a scary time, but it’s predictable. When you know history, the future is not a mystery.

Understanding — Not Judging

Imagine watching a building get torn down brick by brick. It’s loud, messy, violent, and unsettling. But the demolition crew didn’t show up by accident. There’s a blueprint (history). A new foundation is already being poured for a more modern, safer, better structure.

Not the end, it’s the teardown before the rebuild.

Book Recommendation: The Fourth Turning Is Here by Neil Howe

History Has a Rhythm—and We’re in the Crisis Beat

Neil Howe’s The Fourth Turning Is Here explains the generational cycles that shape history—and how each era ends not in collapse, but in confrontation followed by renewal.

The death of a pope.
The rise of new powers.
The breakdown of the global order.

These aren’t signs of the end. They’re the markers of a turning, where institutions are shattered, meaning is redefined, and a new world begins to form.