Don’t let the title scare you away. I’m going to ground this idea before heading off into deep space.
My wife and I recently attended a Vanguard meeting at the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy (GTRLC). Vanguards are the people who commit to making GTRLC part of their estate planning. It was such an inspiring event. First, being with so many people who want to help ensure that the work of the conservancy will continue way beyond their lives, but also to witness the enthusiasm of young people who plan to make environmental protection their life’s work.
Unprompted, six student interns who had spent the summer getting rid of invasive species, digging in the dirt, surveying mussel populations in rivers, and building trails described their experience working in the carefully crafted GTRLC culture. They shared multiple stories of their encounters with GTRLC staff and mentors who brought alive how a kind, welcoming, appreciative, respectful, open, collaborative and connected culture can enrich a person’s experience.
The event demonstrated how young and old can work interdependently to achieve common goals. It also showcased how an organizational culture and the results it intends to achieve are interdependent. The students’ stories highlighted the importance that culture plays in the process of achieving results. Indeed, the culture created at GRTLC has resulted in extraordinary accomplishments. Similarly, and just as importantly, the GTRLC results have made it possible to create the culture they have shaped over the years and to provide internship experiences for younger generations. In short, culture creates the conditions for results, AND results make creating that culture possible. It is an interdependent relationship.
The student presentations and EXPERIENCE gave us hope because we were able to witness in real time the possibilities that can emerge out of a culture of innovation and trust. It’s always uplifting and inspiring to see the possibilities of interdependent thinking, relating, planning, and executing become reality.
Examples of interdependence are rare these days. I don’t know what your sources of information are, but if you read books likem American Scoundrel about the influence of Roy Cohn on Donald Trump or The End Times of Fascism by Naomi Klein and Astor Taylor, you won’t find many examples of compassion, cooperation, or collaboration—much less interdependence. If you are watching streaming series like Furious which describes in graphic detail how sexually trafficked teenagers are exploited and dominated, you won’t be inspired by the intrinsic kindness and goodness of human beings. And, if you read the New York Times, you won’t find a lot of reason to hope from stories of diplomatic dialogue or countries looking for ways to improve the dignity and value of all people.
So, if you are like me, you probably would welcome some indication that there is something in the Universe that might give us more hope—that might help us trust and care for each other. In search of those examples, I decided to go to outer space.
On Earth, systemic integration and collaboration frequently break down. Convoluted incentives, oversized egos, geopolitical friction, and short-term thinking prevent us from coordinating global systems—such as climate stability, resource distribution, AI explosion, or institutional trust—with the same shared clarity we apply to deep-space exploration. Astronomy forces a rare level of perspective: looking outward demands absolute interdependence because the scale of the domain instantly renders isolated, single-actor approaches useless.
At the origin of the universe roughly 14 billion years ago, nature established a fundamental paradigm of interdependence. Dark matter and dark energy—two invisible components making up roughly 95% of the cosmos—act as opposing forces that shape our reality. Dark matter pulls matter together through gravity, serving as the invisible scaffolding for galaxies. Dark energy pushes space apart, regulating cosmic expansion. This dynamic balance between attraction and expansion creates the stable cosmic environment required for galaxies, stars, and ultimately life to emerge.
Wherever astronomers observe massive galaxy clusters, they find a matching framework of dark matter. As astrophysicist Richard Massey noted, dark matter and regular matter “grew up together.” Dark matter provided the gravitational blueprint; ordinary matter followed. For 14 billion years, this cosmic interdependence laid the foundation that allowed humans to inhabit Earth for the past 300,000 years.
To understand this cosmic partnership, humanity must collaborate on an unprecedented scale. Space observatories illustrate this human alignment: the Hubble Space Telescope provides deep views in visible and ultraviolet light, while the James Webb Space Telescope penetrates cosmic dust using infrared. Joining them soon, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will match Hubble’s resolution while offering a field of view 100 times larger. Each observatory targets a different domain, proving that unlocking the mystery of cosmic interdependence requires absolute synergy in our own scientific endeavors.
It appears that humanity excels at designing integrated, interdependent frameworks for exploring the cosmos far more smoothly than it manages interdependencies on Earth.
In space science, structural collaboration is a prerequisite for success. No single nation, instrument, or wavelength can solve a problem like dark energy in isolation; alignment across disciplines, space agencies, and technological generations is mandatory to achieve the goal.
Now, let’s return to earth.
We are living on a fractured, fleeting, fickle and fragile planet in a rapidly evolving universe. Given all the recent articles on the potential dangers of AI, one might conclude that we are doomed. Before we go there, however, we first need to ask how did we get here? What forces created such a dependent, competitive, and independent culture that seems to work against collaboration and interdependence instead of actively seeking ways to enhance it? Here are some possible reasons:
Religions and AI promote dependence. Sports thrive on competition. And capitalism is fueled by competitive and independent thinking focused on self-interest. What appears to be missing are sufficient forces to inspire collaboration and interdependence. It seems to me that Nature provides multiple examples. Robin Walls Kimmerer, Margaret Renkl, Terry Tempest Williams, Richard Powers and many others write extensively about that phenomenology. Even dogs have figured out that interdependence is a much better survival strategy than independence and competition. Dog populations keeps growing while wolf populations keep declining. Guess what? Dogs act interdependently; wolves act competitively and independently. Dogs are all about serving others; wolves act to serve themselves.
We have reached a point in human history at which the requirements for survival are radical interdependence, radical acceptance, radical forgiveness, radical empathy, and radical gratitude for each day we are given. We no longer have time for tepid approaches. And we are nowhere close to being radical on any of those characteristics. Essentially, AI has already become a new species, and it is rapidly approaching how to create sovereign nations—swarms of collaborative AI agents. We better figure out quickly how to relate interdependently because we are not going to win if we try to compete.
I’m hoping more organizations can learn from the example set by the GTRLC. I’m hoping more people can learn from their dogs. And I’m hoping, as a unique cosmic species, we can get our act together before AI does it for us. May it be so.
