The Ten Myths of Progress

My Upcoming Book for a Collapsing World—And the Stories That Made It This Way

Introductory Note: I'm currently writing The Ten Myths of Progress—a book for anyone who feels the world is unraveling, but suspects the real crisis is deeper than politics, economics, or tech. It's in the stories we live by.

I'm writing this book in public.
The Introduction is free for everyone below—a map of where we're headed and why it matters.
Each new chapter drops here for paid subscribers, as both early access and a way to support the work of dismantling these myths, together.

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If you've ever felt the dissonance between what you were told was “normal” and what you know in your bones is wrong—this book is for you.

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Let’s dismantle the machine—and remember what it means to be alive.

Introduction

Why We Must Name These Myths

We used to spend entire days in the creek. Me and the neighborhood kids, barefoot or in worn sneakers, cutting paths through tall grass and down into that little ravine like it was our own secret world. The creek ran wide enough to feel real, shallow enough to wade—usually a moderate flow, enough to pull leaves downstream, to carry our makeshift stick and paper boats, to splash without fear. To us, it was a river, a fortress, a kingdom. We caught crawdads in buckets, fireflies in baby food jars with hole-punched lids, slung rocks at cans, built dams from dirt and stones, and dared each other to leap across the widest parts of the creek. No one told us to. No adult scheduled it. We were just drawn there, like deer to a salt lick.

I remember the smell—earth, wet leaves, the funk of something growing and rotting at the same time. I remember the feeling of walking home covered in scratches, mosquito-bitten, skin sticky with sweat and river muck. I never felt cleaner.

Then there was Boy Scouts. Tents pitched under a canopy of trees. Fires coaxed from damp twigs, the taste of charred hot dogs and smores. Mornings when mist curled off the lake like breath, evenings when the forest swallowed your flashlight whole. We camped in spring rain, autumn frost, under stars so thick they didn’t seem real. It wasn’t fancy. It wasn’t comfortable. But it felt right. We weren’t trying to “escape” civilization. That word wouldn’t have meant anything to us then. We were just being children, alive in a world that felt alive with us.

I didn’t know it at the time, but that was my education. That’s where I learned what it meant to belong to a place. What it meant to be capable—how to start a fire, tie a knot, read the sky. What it meant to be quiet, to pay attention, to carry something heavier than yourself. None of that was called “progress.” None of it needed to be. It just was.

But somewhere along the way, that world was stolen. Not by one person, not all at once. Just eroded. Paved over. Scheduled out. Life moved indoors, onto screens, into spreadsheets. I spent more hours in climate-controlled buildings than under the open sky. Work, school, phones, deadlines. A cascade of tasks that never touched the bone.

They told me this was progress.

A better life.

A more advanced world.

I believed them for a while. After all, the lights were always on. The cars got faster. The phones got smarter. Everything got more convenient. But under that convenience was a hollowing. A grief I couldn’t name. I started to see that what they called “advancement” was just acceleration—more speed, more noise, more abstraction. And less life. Less rootedness. Less meaning.

The truth is: I was more alive in that muddy creek than I’ve ever felt inside a fluorescent-lit office or scrolling through an endless feed. And I don’t think I’m alone.

This book begins there—in the tension between the life we remember and the system we were told to embrace. The ten myths I’m about to name aren’t just bad ideas. They are the architecture of a worldview that’s killing us—spiritually, ecologically, and politically. I’ve lived inside these myths. I’ve felt their seduction and their violence. I’ve watched them fracture families, poison rivers, and steal time from people who didn’t have much to begin with.

It’s time to name them.

Because you can’t fight what you haven’t seen clearly.

And you can’t reclaim what you don’t remember you lost.

What Is a Myth?

We think of myths as old things. Tales whispered around campfires. Stories carved into temple walls. We imagine gods with lightning in their fists or sea monsters slithering beneath wooden ships. But that’s just the surface. A myth isn’t defined by how ancient it is—it’s defined by how deeply it lives inside us. A myth is a story we don’t realize we’re telling. It shapes our reality without needing to justify itself.

Modernity didn’t kill myth. It industrialized it.

The myths of today aren’t about Zeus or Odin. They’re about the stock market. About freedom as shopping. About safety as obedience. About growth as salvation. These myths don’t live in epic poems—they live in school textbooks, advertising slogans, campaign speeches, and TED Talks. They sound like common sense. Like “how the world works.” And that’s what makes them dangerous.

Because myths aren’t just stories. They are instructions. They tell us who we are, what matters, what’s possible, what’s forbidden. They draw the invisible lines between the real and the ridiculous, the sacred and the disposable. And when a myth is enforced by power—by guns, laws, banks, data, police—it becomes something more. It becomes civilization.

Take the myth of progress. It doesn’t come to us as a fairy tale. It comes dressed in numbers, in sleek designs, in press releases. It comes through the voice that says, “We can’t go back,” or “You can’t stop the future,” or “Technology will fix it.” And most of the time, we nod along. Because to question it feels like questioning gravity.

But gravity isn’t a choice. How we live is.

What if these myths weren’t laws of nature, but constructs—assembled, imposed, enforced? What if the stories that undergird our civilization aren’t just wrong, but designed to keep us obedient, distracted, and disempowered?

This is the premise of the book you’re reading.

We live in a civilization that depends on the belief that it is not a myth at all. That it is the natural outcome of human evolution. That all who came before it were primitive, and all who resist it are naïve. But when you start to look—really look—you see the cracks. You see that every aspect of modern life is resting on a scaffolding of assumptions. And most of those assumptions crumble when you tug even lightly at them.

The ten myths in this book are not exhaustive. They’re not new. But they are foundational. Each one is a stone in the wall that keeps us inside this machine. And once you name them—once you speak them aloud—they lose some of their power. That’s the first act of resistance. Not protest. Not sabotage. But clarity.

To say: this is not just how the world is.

This is a story.

And I no longer believe it.

What Do We Mean by ‘Civilization’?

The word civilization sounds noble, doesn’t it? It conjures images of art and architecture, laws and literature, cities full of light and life. We’re taught to see it as the apex of human achievement—what separates us from the chaos of the wild, from the so-called savagery of the past. To be civilized is to be safe, advanced, enlightened. That’s the myth.

But strip away the sheen, and the roots of civilization tell a different story.

Civilization, in its oldest form, means cities—civitas, from the Latin. Permanent settlements. Agricultural surplus. Social stratification. Written codes. Specialization. But it also means something else: control. Control of land, control of people, control of nature. Civilization begins not with community, but with domestication—of crops, of animals, and eventually, of human beings.

What came with it? Grain-based agriculture, which depleted soils and required rigid labor. Standing armies to protect the granaries. Patriarchy to organize labor along gendered lines. Bureaucracies to manage taxation and punishment. Religion reimagined not as a relationship with the sacred, but as a mechanism of obedience. Civilization didn’t emerge gently—it exploded out of conquest and coercion.

This isn’t a metaphor. Civilization has always depended on violence.

The plow tore into the Earth the way empire tore into cultures. Forests were cleared, rivers rerouted, communities disbanded or enslaved, spiritual systems outlawed. And always—always—this was done in the name of something higher. Order. Security. Growth. Progress.

You see it clearly when you look at colonization. European powers didn’t just extract gold and rubber—they exported civilization. They brought paved roads, mission schools, accounting systems. And wherever they went, they left ruin—of ecosystems, of languages, of ways of living that had endured for millennia without machines or prisons.

This is the civilizing mission, and we’re still inside it.

Modern civilization is no longer limited to empires in the old-fashioned sense. It’s global now. Digitized. Branded. Marketed as inevitable. But the logic hasn’t changed. Civilization still depends on a few owning the labor of the many. It still requires disconnection from land and community. It still crushes the wild—in the Earth, and in us.

We’re told it’s the only way to live.

But what if that’s the biggest lie of all?

I’m not saying civilization invented cruelty. Human beings are complex. Violence and beauty have always coexisted in us. But what civilization did was systematize domination. It built institutions and technologies whose purpose was not to support life, but to manage, rank, exploit, and extract.

And here’s the thing most people miss: civilization is not the same thing as culture. Culture is the song. The dance. The ritual. The way a people learns from its place. Culture can exist in forests, on islands, in deserts—without engines, without skyscrapers, without bureaucracy. Civilization is what happens when culture is subsumed by empire.

So when I say “civilization,” I’m not talking about your grandmother’s recipes or the stories you were told as a child. I’m talking about the operating system that runs the modern world. The system that tells us nature is a resource, that people are economic units, that life is a series of problems to be engineered away.

That’s the system this book is written against.

Not because I hate humans. But because I love what we’ve lost—and what we still might save.

Why Now? Why These Myths?

There’s a reason this book couldn’t have been written ten years ago—at least not in the same way. The myths of civilization are old, but their collapse is current. This isn’t theoretical anymore. The scaffolding is shaking.

The ice is melting. The oceans are rising. Entire regions are burning while others drown. The bees are dying, the forests are disappearing, and children can name more corporate logos than native plants. Our attention spans are fractured. Our communities are scattered. Our trust in institutions—government, media, education, even science—is eroding like topsoil under industrial farming.

And what’s the official response?

Apps. Drones. More data. More tech. Greenwashed capitalism. Billionaires pitching Mars as a backup plan. Progress, they tell us, is still the answer—it just needs to be upgraded. Smarter. Faster. Cleaner. But underneath the rebrand, it’s the same machine. The same logic. The same myths running in the background like malware in the operating system of our minds.

So why now? Because the myths are failing, and people can feel it.

There’s a deep unease humming through the world right now, like the vibration before a structural collapse. People are waking up with the sense that something is wrong—but they can’t name it. They know the news lies, that politicians deflect, that corporations greenwash. They feel the spiritual vacancy in their jobs, their cities, their online lives. They’re burning out. Numbing out. Dropping out.

What they need—what we need—is not just more information. We need clarity. We need to trace the pain to its root. And at that root is not just a failed policy or corrupt system. It’s a story. A myth.

We’ve been told we live in a just world. That the economy rewards hard work. That democracy ensures fairness. That technology will save us. That the future will be better than the past. That nature is here to serve us. That civilization is progress.

And none of it holds.

This book is my way of saying that out loud.

It’s my way of tearing down the wallpaper and exposing the mold. Of refusing to pretend any longer that the system is sane just because it’s powerful. The myths I’m naming aren’t just flawed—they are fatal. They justify ecocide, inequality, and psychic disintegration. And they do it with the quiet authority of “normal.”

But there’s nothing normal about extinction.

There’s nothing normal about children growing up without insects, without silence, without rivers they can touch without fear. There’s nothing normal about a world where your worth is measured by output, where forests are valued more once they’re turned into lumber, where progress means forgetting everything that ever kept us human.

So why now?

Because time is running out—for the living systems we depend on, and for the stories we’ve been fed.

Because somewhere in you, there’s still a memory of the creek. Of the campfire. Of the night sky unbroken by light pollution. Of a way of being that didn’t require domination to feel alive.

That memory isn’t backward.

It’s a clue.

Why Me?

This isn’t just theory for me. It’s not an academic exercise. It’s bone-deep. It’s personal.

I was raised inside one of the most orderly myth systems in America—Mormonism. It gave me structure, identity, a sense of belonging. It also taught me obedience, self-surveillance, and a kind of spiritual loyalty that often came at the cost of curiosity and contradiction. We were told to prepare for eternity while keeping in lockstep with a world that was quietly unraveling.

Then came the crash. Not metaphorical—the real one. Interstate 80. Wyoming wind. A van flipped. Me and my brothers thrown through glass and metal. My dad—seatbelted, but forever altered. A traumatic brain injury. A sharp turn in all of our lives. That moment shattered something in me. Not just belief in my own invincibility. Belief in the world I’d been trying to fit into.

How many of us are ejected from the myth machine before we’re ready?

After that, I tried to crawl back into something familiar. Returned to Mormonism for a while. Went on a mission. Tried to make meaning from discipline, from duty. It gave me tools, but not answers. It gave me structure, but no home.

Later, when I left the church, I didn’t leave the myth machine—I just traded one version for another. I went into politics. Believed in reform. Protested education cuts, knocked doors for candidates, believed the system could be made to serve the people if only the right people held the reins.

But I learned something the hard way: even when you “win,” the machine doesn’t change. It just adjusts its mask.

I worked in a law firm, in PR firms and other office settings. I filed paperwork. I sat in meetings that drained the life out of me. And all around me, people were burning out, numbing out, or barely hanging on. The stories we were told—about success, about stability, about the virtues of hard work—they weren’t leading to freedom. They were leading to breakdown. And everyone pretended it was normal.

The truth is, I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to reconcile the lies I was handed with the truths I’ve lived. And I’ve come to believe this: civilization asks us to betray what we know in our bones.

We know the Earth is alive. We know we weren’t made to stare at screens all day. We know that loneliness, despair, and ecological grief aren’t individual failures—they are logical responses to an unlivable system.

I wrote this book because I need to name the forces that shaped me. That seduced me. That broke my bones and nearly broke my own spirit. I wrote it for my daughter, who is growing up in a world where the myth of progress is starting to show its teeth. And I wrote it for anyone else who feels the dissonance between what we’re told to believe and what we actually experience.

You don’t need to be an academic to see the cracks.

You just have to pay attention.

And be willing to say: enough.

How to Read This Book

This book isn’t meant to be read passively. It’s not here to entertain you, to make you feel informed, or to offer five-point solutions that fit neatly into a TED Talk. If you’re looking for optimism without effort, or critiques without consequence, you won’t find it here.

This book is an invitation. A reckoning. A mirror you may not want to look into—but one I believe you already feel in your gut.

Each chapter confronts a foundational myth of modern civilization. Some will feel familiar. Others might sting. Each one exposes a lie we’ve been taught to believe about the world: that progress is linear, that democracy is real, that technology is neutral, that nature is inert. But this isn’t just about critique. It’s about clarity. About naming what’s been hidden so long it became invisible.

Each chapter will unfold in three layers:

1. The Myth Itself — Stated simply and sharply. What we were told.
   

2. The Machinery Behind It — Where it came from, who it serves, how it’s enforced.
   

3. The Cost — Personally, ecologically, politically. And what begins to bloom when we let the myth die.

You’ll also find pieces of my story woven through—because these aren’t just cultural myths. They’re personal. They live in our relationships, our routines, our fears and hopes. They shape how we parent, how we work, how we see ourselves. You’ve likely felt the strain of them in your own life, even if you couldn’t name it.

This isn’t a book of answers. It’s a book of permission—to stop pretending. To question what you’ve been told is sacred. To let something deeper, older, wilder wake up inside you.

You don’t need a PhD to read this. You don’t need the right vocabulary. All you need is a willingness to remember what you already know: that this world, the one we’ve been sold, is not inevitable. That another way is possible—but not if we keep believing the stories that built the one we’re in.

So read slowly.

Let yourself feel it.

And if something stirs—don’t look away.

Following the Water

A few years ago, my wife and I set out to make a film. We’d been told about a group of Native water protectors planning a three-day prayer run—from Great Basin National Park to Lake Mead—tracing the imagined course of a proposed water pipeline. A massive infrastructure project meant to suck groundwater from the deep, rural heart of Nevada to keep Las Vegas alive a little longer. A pipeline of progress, they called it.

But the runners weren’t protesting with signs or lawyers. They were moving with prayers. With songs. With the Earth.

We followed them—literally. Cameras in hand, but humbled. We sat beside them around the fire, listened to their language, their laughter, their grief. I remember one elder speaking to birds directly, like it was an ancestor. Another young runner sang as they jogged, not for the camera, not for the crowd—just for the land.

They weren’t fighting for nature. They were part of it.

They didn’t believe in the myth of infinite growth.

They didn’t believe the desert was a resource to be pumped dry.

They didn’t believe progress required extraction.

And through them, I began to see more clearly: these myths I’ve been naming—of democracy, of scarcity, of civilization’s inevitability—they are not universal. They’re not even very old. They are stories told by the powerful to keep their grip on what doesn’t belong to them. And there have always been other stories.

Stories that say the water has rights. That the land is alive. That the future is not ours to burn.

That prayer is not a relic, but a relationship.

That movement—real movement—is not about efficiency, but reverence.

As we ran alongside them, through that cracked, sun-hardened soil, I felt something ancient and quiet stir in me. A memory I didn’t know I had. Like the Earth was whispering, You knew this once. You can remember again.

And that’s why I wrote this book.

Not just to dismantle the myths.

But to remember the truths.

The Ten Myths of Progress

Chapter 1: The Myth of Progress

Chapter 2: The Myth of Infinite Growth

Chapter 3: The Myth of Democracy

Chapter 4: The Myth of the Civilized vs. the Savage

Chapter 5: The Myth of the Social Contract

Chapter 6: The Myth of Scarcity

Chapter 7: The Myth of Neutral Technology

Chapter 8: The Myth of the Moral Economy

Chapter 9: The Myth of the Passive Earth

Chapter 10: The Myth of Inevitability