We live in an age of trenches. The ideological lines are drawn, the territory is marked, and the algorithms that govern our lives demand one simple, urgent thing: Pick a side. Now.
Are you with us, or are you with them?
This demand is relentless, and it comes at us from every screen. Every complex issue is flattened into a binary, a simple-to-digest, easy-to-share moral slogan. To be "good" is to signal your allegiance instantly and loudly. To pause, to question, to ask for nuance, or—worst of all—to find merit in the "other side's" argument, is to be a traitor. It's to be a coward, an apologist, or a "centrist" (a word now used as a slur by all tribes).
The result is a state of perpetual, low-grade warfare. We are anxious, we are angry, and we are profoundly exhausted. We are, as the subtitle of my new research suggests, "terminally online," and it's making us sick.
The Most Radical Act
In this environment of suffocating certainty, what is the most courageous, radical act a person can take?
It isn't to fight harder. It isn't to shout louder. It isn't to find a better, more cutting insult for the "other side."
The most radical act is to stand up, on your own, and deliberately step out of the trench. It's to walk into the open, unprotected, and terrifying space between the warring factions. It is to enter what my upcoming book The World is Always Never Ending calls the "No Man's Land".
The "No Man's Land" is not a physical place. It is a psychological one—a mental framework, a disciplined practice of resisting the pull of binary thinking. It is the conscious decision to hold complexity—to allow two, three, or even four opposing ideas to exist in your mind at the same time, without collapsing into a simple, tribal answer.
This isn't apathy. It's not moral relativism. It's not a weak-kneed "both-sides-ism" that pretends all arguments are equal.
Instead, it's a powerful psychological toolkit that, as I argue in the book, draws directly from the principles of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and mindfulness. CBT teaches us to identify and challenge "cognitive distortions," and the most common distortion of our age is "dichotomous thinking"—seeing the world in black and white. Mindfulness teaches us to observe our thoughts and feelings without judgment.
The Fusion of CBT and Mindfulness
The "No Man's Land" is the fusion of these two ideas. It is the practice of observing the world's chaos, feeling the pull of outrage, and choosing to create a space between that stimulus and your response. It is the act of giving yourself, as the book's introduction says, "permission to exhale" before you are forced to react.
This is radical because every force in our modern world is designed to eliminate this space. The algorithm doesn't get clicks from, "I'm thinking it over." The political activist doesn't get donations from, "It's complicated." The outrage machine doesn't get engagement from, "I see their point, even if I disagree."
This space, this "No Man's Land" of complexity, is the first thing to be destroyed in any great historical panic. And the book traces this pattern, this historical spiral, again and again.
Historical Patterns of Destroyed Complexity
Salem, 1692: The binary was absolute—you were either with the afflicted children and the court, or you were with the Devil. There was no middle ground. To question the "spectral evidence"—to ask, "How can you be sure?"—was to cast suspicion on yourself. The "No Man's Land" was a death sentence.
The Reign of Terror in France: The Revolution, born from ideals of liberty, quickly devoured itself in a paranoid frenzy of ideological purity. The binary was simple: "patriot" or "enemy of the people." There was no room for moderates. The guillotine fell not just on the old aristocracy, but on the revolutionaries who were deemed "too slow" or "too compassionate." The "No Man's Land" was treason.
McCarthyism in the 1950s: A "Red" under every bed. The binary was "loyal American" or "communist sympathizer." To defend the idea of civil liberties for an accused communist was to be a communist. To stand in the middle, to defend the process over the tribe, was to end your career. The "No Man's Land" was an admission of guilt.
In every case, the panic was fueled by the destruction of complexity. The path to tyranny, to mass hysteria, to the execution of neighbors, is always paved by the simple, attractive, and disastrous lie that the world is simple.
Today's Digital Trenches
Today, our trenches are digital, but the psychological mechanism is identical. We are told that you must either support a person 100% or you must "cancel" them. That a policy is either "salvation" or "fascism." That the people on the other side are not just wrong, but evil.
The "No Man's Land" is the antidote. It is the only place where true solutions can be found, because real-world problems are almost never binary. They are messy, complex, and full of competing truths.
What It Means to Enter the "No Man's Land"
To enter this space is to have the courage to say, "I condemn that action, but I am not ready to condemn the entire person." It's the strength to say, "This policy has flaws, but I can see the good intentions behind it." It's the intellectual integrity to say, "My side is wrong about this specific thing." It is the profound, adult realization that you can be "pro" something without being "anti" something else.
This is not easy. It feels dangerous. You will be shot at from both sides. You will be called a coward by the very people you once called allies. But it is the only way to preserve your own mind. It is the only way to break the cycle of panic that history shows us, time and again, leads to ruin.
What the World Needs Now
The world doesn't need more soldiers in the trenches. It needs more builders, thinkers, and healers. And all of them, without exception, must be willing to do their work in the "No Man's Land."
This framework for "holding complexity" is the central, practical tool offered in my upcoming book, The World is Always Never Ending: A Modern Antidote for the Worried Well-Informed and Terminally Online, which will be released on April 2nd, 2026.
The book is a journey through these historical cycles of panic, designed to give us the perspective and the psychological tools—like the "No Man's Land"—to navigate our own.