When Things Fall Apart

Choosing to see not just the breaking, but what is being revealed

The Motion of the World and the Choice Before Us

I got off the phone this afternoon with a musician friend of mine. He’d played me a track from an app called SUNO AI, which takes a written description of the style of music you’d like it to create—what subject matter you’d like the lyrics to suggest, what sort of vocalist—male, female, R&B, country—and in six seconds, it spits out a "nearly" perfect song. My friend tested the app for the first time with this prompt: Write a song in a 1940s big band style about my dog, Minnie. I want a brassy female vocal, a jazz band with a horn section—bright and up-tempo. After texting me the recording, he sent another message: "It’s over. I am out of a job."

It was hard to say much after hearing the song except to acknowledge that we’ve entered a new phase in music—and in nearly everything else.

“Now it’s time to move with the changes,” I said, “to find a new way to be creative. After all, isn’t that the path we’ve always been on?”

Does it not feel like everyone has gone a bit crazy from all the sudden changes—large, small, inconsequential, and of great consequence? Beneath daily routines, shifting relationships, the creative process, and our perception of meaning itself, there is a deep sense of dislocation, as if the ground beneath us is less steady than we once believed. But it’s not only the world outside that feels unsettled. There is unease in our own minds, in the stories we tell ourselves, in how we create, love, and dream.

From my own experience—and from conversations with others—we are being drawn into something vast and uncertain, grasping for stability.

Yet what if this disorientation is not random? What if it is part of an ancient rhythm, as old as existence itself?

In Chassidic thought, there is a concept called rot’so v’shuv—running and returning. The motion of life, of energy, of the "soul’s yearning"—that is, if you believe in such things! It’s the flame that leaps upward before settling back into the wick, the tide that surges forward and retreats, the breath that expands the lungs and exhales. This dynamic is not a mistake; it is essential to movement, transformation, and creation itself.

If we recognize this pattern, we might see our current moment not as chaos but as part of a necessary motion—one that presents us with a choice.

The Wave of Change

Everything moves and changes—even inanimate things. A relationship never stays the same; it either deepens or weakens, grows in closeness or drifts into distance. A mind doesn’t hold one thought indefinitely; it wrestles, reevaluates, shifts, returns. The creative process doesn’t unfold in a straight line; it oscillates between inspiration and frustration, clarity and uncertainty, momentum and stillness.

The same is true for us. There is a great pushing forward, a wave of momentum, followed by a pulling back. This is not just another difficult season we are feeling. It is a contraction after an expansion, a test that asks whether we will be overwhelmed by the movement—or if we will learn to ride the wave.

Two Responses to Upheaval

When everything shifts, we have two choices.

One is to retreat—to give in to despair, lethargy, or cynicism. This is the temptation of all disruptions, whether personal or creative. A moment of doubt arises, and instead of working through it, we stop. A creative block appears, and instead of pushing forward, we surrender to the void of silence.

But there is another way.

If motion is inevitable, resisting it is futile. To embrace the concept of rot’so v’shuv is to internalize not only the movement of things but how we navigate within that movement. What matters is how we move within it. When things fall apart, we can choose to see not just what is breaking, but what is being revealed. When our creative instincts falter, we can ask: What new ways of seeing does this demand of me?

The Opportunity in Discomfort

When the world inside us shifts, there is an opening.

A crisis in confidence can lead to deeper creative trust, one no longer dependent on external validation but built from within. A period of artistic emptiness can force a reexamination of how we create, leading to breakthroughs impossible in a season of ease. A rupture in the way we understand ourselves—our work, our path, our direction—can lead not to collapse, but to something truer than before.

Likewise, this shaking is not only an unraveling. It is an opportunity. The illusions of stability and inevitability have been stripped away, leaving only the essential: What do we believe? How will we respond?

Sometimes, rather than searching for new voices, we do better to listen to those that have endured for centuries—like the prophet Isaiah, who wrote: "In returning and rest shall you be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your strength." The Hebrew word for “returning” is teshuva, which means both repentance and return to the Source of all creativity—a recognition that movement away is never the end of the story. There is always a return. The question is, how will we make it?

Choosing to Move Forward

If the creative process, like life itself, feels overwhelming, it is because we are standing in the middle of a wave, caught between the going and the coming. But we are not powerless.

Rot’so v’shuv is not merely something that happens to us; it is something we can engage with.

• In relationships, it means leaning into discomfort rather than withdrawing.

• In habits, it means recognizing that stagnation often precedes growth.

• In creativity, it means accepting the ebb and flow rather than forcing an unnatural consistency.

• In self-exploration, it means trusting that confusion is not a dead end but a necessary part of transformation.

And in facing uncertainty, it means understanding that despair is not the only option. This is a time for action, clarity, and deeper vision. It is a time to return—to curiosity, to commitment, to the recognition that the cycle is not just loss but renewal.

The Way Forward

Despite how it feels, neither our inner world nor the world around us is breaking apart. It is moving, shifting, revealing. This is not the first time, nor will it be the last.

The question before us is not What is happening? But how will we respond?

We can let the movement carry us into frustration, or we can recognize it for what it is: a wave that does not only crash but also has the power to carry us forward.

Like creativity. Like love. Like life itself.

We cannot stop the motion. But we can decide whether we will fight vainly against it or learn to move with it, whether we will retreat in fear or step forward in clarity.

The wave is rising.

The choice is ours.

And right now? I’m going to try that music app and see if I can create something that’s never been done!