More than ever, it seems we are confronted with destabilizing trends in the political, social, environmental, and cultural spheres. Are these merely the usual tremors that accompany and enable change in healthy developments, or rather signs of regressive moves in response to the increasingly unmanageable complexities of an interconnected world? New technological developments are exciting but also unsettling; they open amazing opportunities while questioning cherished customs. Who hasn’t gotten lost in the jungle of usernames and passwords that we assume guarantee our safety in a world where sophisticated hackers pierce the most heavily guarded firewalls?! On the internet, are we still communicating with a human being or is it merely an AI chatbot on the other side? How does the individual, how do groups respond to the partial or transient loss of orientation and comprehension and the accelerating speed of the technological and geopolitical transformations that we are experiencing? How do we cope when our mind is ‘in the line of fire’?

Invited by the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA) to participate in a worldwide short essay contest, in this book the winners, 120 authors from 34 countries, share their thoughts about the challenges and complexities of our times. They show how wars, migration, climate change, racial prejudice, gun violence, and child abuse affect us; they explore, dream, muse, reason, mourn, and remember; they grapple with loss, alienation, anxiety, fear, and despair; and they find love, hope, comfort, patience, new answers, and creative ways to think about the conflicts and difficulties we are facing. The IPA in the Community and the World committees on Climate, Culture, Education, Health, Humanitarian Fields & United Nations, Law, Migrants & Refugees, Violence, and Prejudice, Discrimination & Racism have selected these texts to inspire a dialogue with all who want to develop a deeper understanding of the world we’re living in.