Breaking the Spell of Progress

The Capstone Chapter of My Book "Ten Myths of Progress"

Happy new week to you all. I am pleased to say we have arrived at the end of this journey to write a book! This is my first. There was a time I would have believed this day would never come. The idea of writing a book once seemed so daunting. But I used some ADHD hacks, like breaking it down into smaller pieces. One chapter at a time, I carved out a story, and elaborated on a deep perspective about our world. I truly hope it reaches hearts and minds. No matter what, I find meaning in having expressed myself.

*I’ll have a link for purchasing the book here soon.

The Power of Core Beliefs

When we talk about myths, it’s tempting to think of them as surface-level stories we can simply set aside when proven false. But myths don’t live on the surface. They live at the core. They function like what psychologists call core beliefs: deep, often unexamined assumptions that quietly shape how we see the world.

Core beliefs are far more than just “ideas we hold and believe.” In a way, they hold us. They determine what feels possible, what feels dangerous, what feels inevitable. They become the lens through which all evidence is filtered. If we believe the world is dangerous, every shadow confirms it. If we believe people are selfish, every act of kindness looks like manipulation. And if we believe civilization is inevitable, every story of collapse or resistance looks like foolishness.

Changing a core belief is notoriously difficult because it requires more than facts. Changing them requires disruption. Anyone who has struggled with addiction knows this. It’s not enough to know that alcohol harms the body, or that smoking causes cancer. The core belief sustaining the behavior has to break. Annie Grace, in This Naked Mind, describes how alcohol culture trains us to believe drinking is fun, relaxing, even essential. Only when that belief cracks does abstinence feel possible, even desirable. The “aha” moment is less about data than about finally seeing the belief itself for what it is: a lie we’ve mistaken for truth.

Civilization’s myths function the same way. They are not rational conclusions we’ve all agreed upon. They are background assumptions baked into language, culture, education, religion. They whisper to us every day: This is just how it is. Progress is inevitable. Growth is good. Humans are selfish. Nature is inert. There is no alternative. Like any addiction, these beliefs persist because they have been repeated so often that they feel like common sense.

The first step toward liberation, then, is not simply to disagree with the myths but to see them as myths. To drag them out from the shadows of common sense into the light of scrutiny. Only then do they lose their spell.

The Web of Myths

One of the hardest things about changing a core belief is that it rarely stands alone. It sits in a network of assumptions, reinforcing and protecting one another like threads in a web. Pull on one and the others tighten. Challenge one and the rest come rushing to its defense.