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Good morning,
This is the last issue of The Oracle in 2022. In line with delphic traditions, here are five predictions for 2023 (they're more sort of weak signals I've picked up throughout the year):
Chronic illness is becoming a fact of life, with repercussions on work culture. Long Covid, mental health issues and other chronic diseases are increasing among all age groups. Most of us are either chronically ill or caring for chronically ill relatives, and the workplace is just not suited for it. The only pathway I see in the short to medium term is to put disability justice and trauma-informed practices at the centre, but addressing the root causes would require much more profound culture shifts.
The end of social media as we know it will have profound impacts on how we gather. Twitter and Instagram are going through some sort of unplanned obsolescence and TikTok is on the rise but promoting anonymous connections and parasocial relationships rather than supporting bonds with people we know. Event planning is a headache right now because audiences are scattered across platforms, and artists are struggling to reach out to and bring audiences to shows and parties (this is not due to social media alone but is compounding with behaviour changes we've been seeing since the beginning of the pandemic). We need new ways to plan for, promote and support physical gatherings, both private and public.
The occult as escapism. When material life becomes difficult to bear, people turn to the otherworld for answers. There's been a renewed interest in tarot readings and astrology in the past couple of years, and that's just the beginning. The paranormal is now a cultural trend. UFOs and ghosts are in again. I wouldn't be surprised to see a resurgence in practices like spiritism. The danger is when people don't have the inner compass to tell them when they're sliding into dangerous territory (conspiracy theories, cults and other predatory movements).
By contrast, there's growing interest for embodiment, a loose term regrouping various healing and personal development modalities centred on the body. So while many people (mostly younger generations) look for ways to escape the material world, supported by the capitalist fantasies of colonizing virtual spaces (commercial web3 projects), others are striving to reconnect to the somatic essence of life. How those two diverging trends will coexist is unclear.
The end of ambition. This topic made quite the buzz in 2022. There are people who relate, others who think it's unfeminist to say women should put their careers aside to promote their own personal wellbeing. Whichever side you're on, it's hard to deny that something's definitely happening with how women relate to life goals. Let's not forget the demographics here: we have an entire generation sandwiched between aging parents and young children they all have to care for, and we know most of the caretaking is done by women. That same generation is reaching the age where they've accumulated enough work baggage to reflect upon whether all the effort was indeed worth it. There are profound cultural shifts at play, driven by women, and whether they actually result in structural changes depends on the ability of decision-makers to listen and accommodate.
Let's see how these play out. Anyway, it was a real pleasure to send this newsletter in 2022. See you next year!
Flavie
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