When Things Fall Apart: Part 1—A Global Intimacy Disorder

Leadership, love, and meaning in a time of unraveling

by David Cicerchi

Okay, here I go.

I'm doing this blog post because with the complexity and pace of change, it's sometimes easier for me to talk—or type— things through in order to make sense of them—especially things that matter. My intention for this writing is to make sense of the question of "Who am I?" in a world that’s unraveling, where we don't collectively know who we are.

And the truth is, we are unraveling. As a culture, as a civilization, as a species. In order to transform and become resilient amidst the unraveling, we must face it, head on.

We live in a time of breakdown. We're breaking apart. Dr. Marc Gafni calls this a global intimacy disorder. We no longer feel each other. We no longer feel intimate within a shared story of value, of meaning, of mutual responsibility. And we see this everywhere.

Iran, China, Russia—a growing bloc of authoritarian nations opposed to the West. And the West itself? Falling apart. The U.S. and Europe, formerly united, are now fracturing. The Trump-led invasion of Venezuela, the escalation in Greenland, and rising tensions with Norway—all between so-called allies. It’s jaw-dropping. Crazy-making.

And this isn't just about geopolitics. It's the pattern underneath.

It’s win/lose dynamics. Global rivalry. Existential threats. Everyone afraid that if they don’t win, they’ll be destroyed. So the game becomes: dominate or be dominated. And meanwhile? Climate change surges. Fires. Floods. Infrastructure breakdown. AI arms races. Nuclear threats re-emerge. Entire civilizations grow more dissociated. People shoot each other in schools. And we all feel it.

This is the global intimacy disorder.

We no longer live in a Cosmos held together by a shared fabric of value. And when there is no shared story—only competing fragments, collapsing institutions, and rival worldviews—we fall apart. Collectively. Culturally. Spiritually. To be fair, we've never truly had a shared story, but now we're so interconnected that without a shared story, we are connected by power games that risks the survival of our species.

So what do we do?

Some people check out—go to one retreat after another, turn off the news, turn away from the world. Others freak out—endless anxiety, doomscrolling, rage.

And yet, neither of those are enough. Because something else is also true.

Underneath the chaos, we live in an Intimate Cosmos.

Now, when most people hear “intimacy,” they think of emotional closeness, romance, or personal vulnerability. And that’s not wrong—it’s just partial. What if we expanded the meaning?

In a deeper sense, intimacy is not just closeness—it’s shared identity in the presence of a sense of otherness.*

It’s the sense that we are different, yes—but not separate. That in the space between us, there is a mutuality of recognition, of feeling, of value, and of purpose. That who I am is in some way entangled with who you are, and that we both matter—not because we’re the same, but because our uniqueness contributes to a shared whole.

That’s what we mean by an Intimate Cosmos.

It means that reality itself is not just mechanical or random—it is relational. It is structured by connection. Every system, every cell, every being exists in relationship—and these relationships are not just functional, they are intrinsically valuable.

To live in an intimate cosmos is to live in a world where:

• Your actions ripple through systems because everything is connected

• Your authentic desires matter because they are part of a larger evolutionary movement

• Your leadership is not just about control or outcomes—it’s about participating in the unfolding story of value and wholeness.

  
  

This isn’t mystical fluff. It’s an ontological claim—a way of saying the very nature of reality is intimate. And when we stop feeling that intimacy—when we stop recognizing the value of others and the value of the Whole—we contribute to the global intimacy disorder.

We forget we’re part of something larger.

And that forgetting? That’s the crisis.

But when we remember—when we live as if we are part of a larger Field of Value

—we move differently

—we lead differently

—we reconnect to meaning.

And we begin, together, to build a future that’ we all want to live in.

And so even amidst collapse, another possibility emerges: a new configuration of intimacy, or wholeness. An evolutionary transformation.

We are at a choice point in history.

Will we spiral deeper into disintegration?

Or will we respond to the meta-crisis with a meta-culture—a new story of what it means to be human, to matter, and to participate in a Cosmos that is not dead, but alive with value?

To be continued...

*For a list and explanation of the principle of intimacy, see First Principles and First Values: 42 Propositions on CosmoErotic Humanism, the Meta-Crisis, and the World to Come, by David J. Temple.

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