The Fourth Turning

My Mom says when we were little we used to sleep with our new shoes because we loved them so much. Today I would be happy to live somewhere where I never had to wear shoes, or socks, but that is not Idaho. So yesterday I bought myself some real shoes, with a front and a back, ones that require socks. I met several people in the Macy's shoe department as I tried to solicit advice about shoes for Idaho. The last woman I met, who actually started the original conversation because she liked the shoes I had on, walked up to the counter as I was paying. She asked which ones I picked and I said both and we laughed. Hey, they were on double sale. I felt like my new friendly self.

I went for a hike with my neighbors this afternoon and they invited me to their poker party next weekend. Tuesday I have a meeting with the gallery in Eagle. This morning I started another study, of my nephew Ludo this time, but I did not like how it started so I started it over this evening.

Another one of my friends lost her job, and I've been thinking about The Fourth Turning anyway, so I think it is time for my book review.

The Fourth Turning is by William Strauss and Neil Howe, who are historians. The book explores their idea that history repeats itself in regular 80 year cycles with 4 distinct approximately 20 year periods, or turnings. It was published in 1997 and I find it more and more fascinating. The First Turning is a High, the Second is an Awakening, the Third is an Unraveling, and the Fourth is a Crisis. They go back much father, but the last crisis began in 1929. Add 80 years and what do you get? 2009. I find it interesting that in 1997 2 historians predicted the crisis we are currently in based on the cycles of history and not economics or politics. This is also why when anyone tries to tell me that the economy is getting better, I know it is a lie. We have at least ten more years of this.

There is a bunch of stuff in the book about archetypes, there is an archetype for each turning that describes the generation. I am disappointed to be a Nomad, born 1961-1981, although it describes me well. Most of my friends are Prophets, born 1943-1960. My parents are Artists, born 1925-1942. My daughter is a Hero, born 1982-2007 (the authors do not put a date here because the Crisis had not happened yet, but I'm thinking it happened in 2008.) My daughter's generation gets to be heroes because they are the ones that get us out of the crisis.

Much of the book is to support the theory, but there are a few chapters about the coming crisis and how to prepare for it. In the first few paragraphs of Chapter 10, A Fourth Turning Prophecy, talking about how the crisis might start, includes:

"In retrospect, the spark might seem as ominous as a financial crash, as ordinary as a national election, or as trivial as a Tea Party."

Tea Party? Seems to me that we got all three.

When I originally read the book my thought was that I should prepare for the crisis and I regret that I did not do a good job of it. As I read their list of how America should prepare, America did not do a good job, either. The authors suggest that during a crisis we have the opportunity to define what will emerge from the crisis. They equate the crisis period to Winter and we get to define what will emerge in Spring. In that sense, as I try to emerge out of my own crisis, I like to think that I get to define what will emerge in me, my values, my attitude, what I think is true to me and good for my soul.

So, check out the book if you are interested and I think there is a link on-line if you just want to look up your archetype, which everybody does except those of us that are stuck being Nomads. I will end as the book ends with Ecclesiastes 3.1-11,

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to throw away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.