It's not uncommon for people to say the world is falling apart around us. Even in strong economies, brothers still rob brothers, wars rage over deep-sea mineral rights, identity theft surges online, and tens of thousands die offline, as victims of the public arsons and massacres always flaring up somewhere in the world.

Then, when the money stops...

What anchors us to our happiness? How can we know if our foundations are built on sand or stone? When the tide goes low, how much of our foundation do we find leaving with the water?

Why shouldn't people say the world is falling apart? We've achieved such great things, yet the rate of invention is slowing. We enjoy astronomical standards of living, yet we complain more than our ancestors. We're rich, but money is always losing value. We have so much knowledge, yet the value of information only goes down. There are still hungry people in the world... enough said.

The tide rises and falls again, and we see the solutions still aren't working. Even as we embrace it, we see ourselves further from reality than ever before, and we see that speed has become our defense against the fragile things we built.

I put my faith in a button. I never learned, and never wanted to do otherwise, until the old knowledge expired. I became trapped and disoriented, longing, even desperate, for anything to grab onto... as if I were in a bubble, knowing everything tangible was beyond my walls. Then a light reached out and entered into my bubble. The child's words were the only truth in an avalanche of lies.