Epilogue

Chaos is the word of our time. It represents an order that we do not yet know. People struggle with this: time seems to have no direction and there is a lack of insight and overview. Where is the world going? People are losing a grip on their existence and our leaders seem to have lost that grip as well. Chaos is a symptom of crisis and in today's world, we stumble from crisis to crisis. Many people feel that way.

Chaos is also a good sign. Chaos is in fact a prerequisite for substantial change. Without chaos, there is no breakthrough in a transition. Chaos is therefore a sign that we can say goodbye to the old. Something new may be born. A new world. A new system.

If we recognize this, we can embrace chaos. It is not easy, and I expect that with the crises still to come – covid was just a taste of what is to come – chaos will only increase in the next 10 years. As a result, the contradictions in society will become even greater than they already are, and the lack of peace will also grow. Even more protests, even more lawsuits, and even more conflicts. We must go through the pain of transition and embrace the chaos.

This is also a book of hope. The greater the chaos, the closer we come to the solution. We learn from crises, and in doing so, we stumble along. Until we reach the tipping point, and, in my view, we are approaching that point in this decade. After that, things can go (relatively) fast because we will experience exponential development. The chaos will diminish, and we will be in calmer waters.

I wanted a different kind of book this time. More personal. More accessible. Simpler. For a wider audience. But also, a kind of magnum opus, an overview of the insights I have acquired over the past decades and which I would like to share with you. That is why I called on the help of a journalist as ghostwriter, Mischa Verheijden. Mischa interviewed me a few times and wrote down his interview so well and aptly that it reflected the core of my thinking. So first of all, I would like to thank Mischa Verheijden for the excellent work he has done. Well done Mischa; through your valuable contribution more people will enjoy this book! Gijs van den Boomen, Arjen de Groot and Michael de Beer of KuiperCompanons have done a fantastic job. Together with them, I worked on a vision of the future for the Netherlands for the next 100 years. Many thanks also to my publisher Nathalie Doruijter of De Geus publishers for all her efforts to make this book possible. And to Thomas Coenraads, the desk editor, who went through the text very sharply and critically, which made it even more compact and fluent. To my colleagues at DRIFT and to my assistant Shifra for all her editing and organizing work for this book. And finally, to my dear wife Inge, for her endless patience and for helping me to endure the necessary stress that this book, even during the holidays, brought with it.