Don Quixote & His Dreamcoat
useful things in a weird world
Everything, Everywhere …
There’s a horse in the hospital.
He’s not sick. He’s just ... there. In the lobby. Next to the water cooler. Whinnying gently beside the receptionist who’s pretending this is normal.
You and I aren’t sure whether to laugh, run, or ask if the horse has an appointment.
Meanwhile, the washing machine downstairs complains in fluent Greek, the self-checkout machine offers unsolicited life advice, and billion-dollar AIs write sonnets that sound oddly like your cranky neighbor.
This is not Kolkata. Nor is it Cannes. Or Cupertino. It’s all of them at once — and none of them at all.
In moments like these, we reach for metaphors. For myths. For music.
Don Quixote, for instance, decided long ago that the world’s gone mad, and that the best response is to mount a horse, preferably real and tilt at windmills that now brandish pitch decks and VC funding. His loyal squire Sancho stays close, rolling his eyes but carrying the snacks. Together, they navigate a world that confuses illusion with truth, performance with meaning, and going viral with actual living.
And then there’s Joseph. The one with the dreamcoat1. Technicolor, shimmering, wildly impractical. He just kept dreaming — and ended up running the show. Dumb luck? Or the ability to hold faith and absurdity in the same breath?
Maybe that's what this moment asks of us too.
Because we are now deep inside a mash-up — a genre-bending, glitchy musical-comedy-thriller directed by a confused algorithm. Where spreadsheets are mistaken for monsters & philosophers show up on TikTok.It might not be wise to take everything seriously.
But it will be wise to take some things playfully.2
There’s a horse loose in the hospital. He’s never been to a hospital before. He’s as confused as you are.
So laugh. Sing. Borrow a dreamcoat. The show’s only just begun.
The absurdity of our moment isn't just comical — it's a wake-up call. Like Don Quixote startled from his dreams, we're collectively opening our eyes to a landscape that no longer matches our old stories.
Rip Van Winkle?
Some say we’re waking up after a 75-year nap, like a fairytale prince kissed by a crisis. The old maps — about how trade works, how power flows, what knowledge means — are no longer helping us find the forest, let alone the trees.
We live in a spiky reality — not flat, not fair, not stable. Our new tools are magical; our institutions are tired.3 The past won’t predict the future, and the future is arriving at a rapid clip — asymmetrically.
There’s a temptation to respond with more expertise — smarter models, more data. But what if the terrain has outgrown the map?
If your nothing sometimes erupts into everything ... that's a rather extraordinary nothing after all.4
This might be a better metaphor than most forecasts.
Because we're not merely dealing with supply chains or chatbots or geopolitics. We're also brushing up against something stranger — new forms of intelligence, new/old ethical questions, and a sudden awareness that no one — no expert, no government, no AI— has the master key.
There’s a growing hum beneath all this, a kind of invitation. To wonder not just what will happen, but what matters.A historian5, chronicling the great sweep of civilization, reminds us that every period of chaos also plants seeds. Of beauty. Of insight. Of new beginnings.
That doesn’t mean the monsters disappear. But it does mean that meaning is still on the table. You just have to look at the right time. And ask the right questions.
Like Bob Dylan once rasped:
Yes, and how many times must the cannonballs fly, before they’re forever banned?
Navigating …
Not by GPS. Not by ideology. Not by waiting for someone to give us the answer.
The way forward — if there is one — looks less like a plan and more like a tightrope walk over a surrealist landscape. Balance. Improvisation. Courage with a side of foolishness.
All of us have access to one or more of these navigation tools. Some are old as stories. Some are so simple they barely register as aids for navigation. But they will help.
Notice the story you’re telling yourself. We all do it — especially when the world feels like a riddle. Maybe you're the one trying to fix everything. Or the one who’s already given up. But sometimes, just realizing you’re in a story gives you the freedom to rewrite a line or two. You don’t need a new ideology — just a better plot.
Look up. Really. The night sky is still there. The sunset doesn’t care for the news. A walk in the park or even a glance through the window — these aren’t luxuries. They serve as reminders that not everything needs fixing. That some things just are. And being with them can quiet the static in your head.
And no one has to walk this tightrope alone. Don Quixote had Sancho. You need someone who carries the basket, tells the truth, and believes in your madness just enough to stay beside you. Someone to remind you that noble quests are better with lunch breaks and eye-rolls.
Of course, you’ll still wish you had a map. But in times like this, it’s your feet — not your frameworks — that help you move forward. Take one step, pause, breathe, take a step again. The fog won’t lift until you begin.
And if all else fails? Let the wind sing like that line from Bob Dylan:
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind …
This isn’t about optimism or pessimism. It’s about presence.
Even in a storm, you get to choose how to walk, who to walk with, and what kind of story you carry in your pocket.So don your dreamcoat and mount your horse. Let the colors clash as you tilt at digital windmills. And if someone asks what you're doing, smile sweetly and say, I'm navigating this beautiful weirdness.
Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat was Andrew Lloyd Webber’s psychedelic musical retelling of the biblical Joseph story. Key message: dreams (and dreamers) can be ridiculed, betrayed, but still rise and shine. Fav song: Any Dream Will Do in which there’s a lovely line, ‘A crash of drums, a flash of light, my golden coat flew out of sight…’
It’s like there’s a horse loose in a hospital.
I think eventually everything’s going to be okay, but I have no idea what’s going to happen next. And neither do any of you, and neither do your parents, because there’s a horse loose in the hospital. It’s never happened before, no one knows what the horse is going to do next, least of all the horse.
There are no experts.
John Mulaney
The real problem of humanity is the following: we have paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology.
E. O. Wilson
Some people think God created the universe.
Some people think nothing created the universe, which is the funniest guess and the nothing people make fun of the God people. They say, “God doesn't exist.”
I'm like, okay, maybe. But you know what definitely doesn't exist? Nothing. That's the defining characteristic of nothing is that it doesn't exist.
So what are we talking about? Either you think it's God, something you can't see, touch, taste, photograph, and science can't prove, or you think it's nothing, something you can't see, touch, taste, photograph, and science can't prove. But I think we can all agree if nothing, your nothing, sometimes spontaneously erupts into everything. That's a pretty goddamn magical nothing you guys!
Pete Holmes
Kenneth Clark, Bristish art historian & creator of the BBC series, Civilisation.