Personal reflections after reading Mustafa Suleyman’s “The Coming Wave”

It’s just before sunrise in Singapore. I sit by my window in the gentle half-light, a warm mug in my hands. The city around me is still quiet, almost serene. In moments like this, life feels comfortably ordinary. The hum of the air conditioner, the faint glow of my sleeping phone on the table – everything suggests another routine day ahead. Yet, in this fragile dawn peace, I sense a subtle undercurrent of unease. Not anxiety exactly. Something slower, deeper, more persistent. A quiet hum I can’t ignore.

Yesterday, I finished reading a book that put words to that feeling. The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman. It’s one of the most important books I’ve read in years. It didn’t shout at me or catastrophize. It laid out, with clarity and calm, the scale of change that’s coming – and how little we’re prepared for it. These are my reflections after reading it.

This isn’t a book review. It’s more a personal reckoning. A slow unfolding of thoughts and decisions I’ve been making in its aftermath. I’m not here to tell you how to think or what to do. But I do hope to encourage a kind of awareness – an invitation to wake up to where the world is heading and to find your own way of preparing for it. You don’t need to draw the same conclusions as me. But I think we all need to stop pretending that we’re not already in the middle of the storm.

One of the early chapters describes how rapidly advancing technologies – especially AI and synthetic biology – are reaching a point where they’ll be capable of shaping the future in ways we can’t anticipate or contain. That stuck with me. I’ve always had an interest in tech, but this was different. This wasn’t about gadgetry or progress. It was about power. The kind of power that makes nuclear weapons look quaint. And the uncomfortable truth that the people building this power don’t fully understand it.

The book isn’t trying to scare. But if you sit with its ideas long enough, they get under your skin. Because it’s not about the future. It’s about now. These technologies are already shaping our lives. And they’re doing so without any serious public conversation about limits, values, or consequences.

I think that’s what affected me the most. Not just the risks themselves, but how unaware we are of them. How easy it is to be lulled into comfort by the conveniences of daily life. How little time most of us spend reflecting on the systems we depend on. And how quickly those systems could unravel.

After finishing the book, I found myself looking at my life through a different lens. Not with paranoia. But with a kind of clarity. What systems am I dependent on? What would happen if they failed? What would I do if supply chains broke down, or if the digital networks that mediate almost everything became unstable? What would it mean to be truly resilient in a time like this?

Those questions didn’t send me into panic. But they did stir something in me. A sense that I need to be more deliberate about how I live. More conscious of the risks. More rooted in the essentials. Not as a survivalist. But as someone who wants to live fully in a world that’s becoming more uncertain by the day.

That’s why I’ve been spending more time thinking about how and where I want to live. Singapore has been home for a while now. And I continue to believe it’s one of the most strategically placed cities in the world when it comes to governance, infrastructure, and foresight. It’s not perfect, but it responds. It adapts. And in an age of instability, that matters.

At the same time, I’ve been exploring the idea of a second base. A place that’s more off-grid. Easier to maintain. Closer to the land. A place that can serve as both a personal sanctuary and a practical backup. Somewhere I’d actually want to be, not just run to. Margaret River is one option I’ve looked into. So is northern Thailand. And other parts of Australia. The idea isn’t new to me, but after reading the book, the urgency sharpened. I don’t want to scramble later. I want to build now, calmly, while there’s still time and space to think clearly.

And I’m not just thinking about myself. I’ve been supporting a project in Brazil on Marajó Island – a permaculture farmstead that’s exploring regenerative ways of living, tied to local communities. There’s something deeply human about that work. It’s not just about growing food or collecting rainwater. It’s about resilience in the truest sense: ecological, spiritual, relational. I’m also exploring similar projects in Thailand. The details are still forming, but the thread is the same. How do we build places that hold us when the world doesn’t?

But here’s the part I want to be clear about: I’m not sharing all of this because I think you should do what I’m doing. I’m sharing it because I think we all need to be doing something. Whatever makes sense for us. Wherever we are. The key is awareness. Reflection. And action.

We can’t afford to sleepwalk through this next chapter of history. Not with the kinds of forces that are already in motion. If you don’t want to think about AI or synthetic biology or geopolitical instability, I understand. But they’re not going to stop just because we look away.

One of the book’s most sobering points is that our institutions – the ones we count on to manage risk – aren’t keeping up. Governments are slow. International cooperation is fragile. And many of the people with the most influence over these technologies aren’t accountable to anyone. That doesn’t mean all hope is lost. But it does mean that personal and community-level resilience is more important than ever.

Resilience isn’t just about prepping or stockpiling. It’s about attention. It’s about how we use our time. How we relate to technology. How we build relationships. How we understand the systems we’re part of. It’s about choosing a slower, more intentional way of being in a world that rewards speed and reaction.

That’s been a big one for me personally. The recognition that my own relationship to technology – especially my phone – needs to change. I’m not anti-tech. But I am wary of the way it creeps into every moment. The way it fragments attention. The way it makes everything feel urgent, even when nothing is. I want to live more slowly. More deliberately. To reclaim the kind of inner stillness that algorithms can’t sell.

Reading the book didn’t give me a checklist. It gave me a lens. A way of seeing what I already sensed: that the systems we’ve built are remarkable, but fragile. That the pace of change is accelerating. That the boundaries between human and machine, between life and code, are blurring. And that each of us, in our own quiet way, needs to decide how we’re going to meet that wave.

I don’t think there’s one right answer. But I do believe that awareness is the starting point. From there, we can each begin to build the kind of life that feels aligned, resilient, and meaningful. Not in opposition to change, but in response to it.

So consider this a gentle invitation. Read the book if you haven’t. Reflect on what’s happening around you. Think about the dependencies in your own life. The habits that shape you. The systems you trust. The places and people you might turn to when things get uncertain. And then start making adjustments. They don’t have to be dramatic. But they should be intentional.

The future isn’t something we get to watch from the sidelines. We’re in it now. And how we live, what we prioritize, and how we prepare – it all matters. More than ever.