The other night I was talking with my friend & former coworker Erin, the only person I keep in touch with from my days at UPMC Health Plan. We worked off & on together until my retirement, from 2000-2015.
I’m surprised we even became friends, she’s a bit younger than me. I’ve always been more comfortable with people my age or older, but Erin’s different. Without giving away her age, let’s just say she was born when I was in the 10th grade.
But we worked side by side for years, were sci-fi geeks and fans of The Walking Dead and Big Bang Theory.
Where was I? Oh that’s right—so we’re on the phone the other night, and she asked if I’d ever heard of a book titled “The Fourth Turning” or saw the video on Youtube. Nope.
So later that night I clicked on the youtube link Erin sent me and was very intrigued.
This man explains that throughout American history, from before the Revolutionary War to the present, our country has gone thru the same blocks of history lasting 80 years. Each block is broken into four segments—High, The Awakening, The Unraveling, Crisis.
Here’s a chart of our current history block.
The social scientist goes into elaborate detail on these segments, including ones earlier (for example, our last ‘Crisis’ segment saw the collapse of Wall Street, the Great Depression, the rise of Fascism, WWII).
And then the 80 year cycle began anew. Our history block above.
Here’s what I found particularly fascinating; this video (from 3 years ago) is based on a book written in 1997—where the author forecasts a crisis segment in 11 years, 2008-2028. He had no idea what was coming. But sure enough….
I know one can twist historical events to make anything fit their story. For crying out loud, we celebrate Columbus Day and the man was a slave trader. But you can’t deny we’re going through a pretty epic crisis in American history right now, and have been since 2008.
So… four more years until the cycle begins anew. I wonder if we’re truly on the cusp of the next High around 2028? Fingers crossed. If you want to check out the video, it’s only 10 minutes long and right here. Here’s hoping history repeats itself.