Wayward Planet: How the Entire World Got Lost Together (and Still Insists It’s a Shortcut)

# The Wayward World Tour: How Every Nation Perfected the Art of Getting Spectacularly Lost

There is a charming lie we tell at passport control: that borders keep the wayward out. In truth, they merely provide a convenient queue for the globally disoriented. From the Arctic Circle to the equator, humanity has spent the last decade perfecting new and ever more expensive methods of going adrift—politically, economically, morally—while insisting we are still following the map.

Start in Washington, where Congress spent the spring staging a bipartisan interpretive dance titled “Raising the Debt Ceiling.” The choreography was simple: step left, step right, lunge toward default, pirouette back at the last second, bow to the bond markets. Critics called it brinkmanship; the rest of the planet recognized it as the legislative equivalent of a drunk tourist asking a lamppost for directions in three languages, none of them English.

Meanwhile, in Beijing, the property giant Evergrande continued its slow-motion swan dive into the South China Sea of unpaid invoices. Chinese regulators promised a “controlled demolition,” which is finance-speak for lighting the fuse and hoping the blast radius respects municipal zoning. International investors, still clutching color-coded prospectuses, suddenly discovered that “guaranteed” is Mandarin for “good luck.” The shockwave rippled from Sydney pension funds to Swiss family offices, proving once again that when China sneezes, the world catches a margin call.

Europe, never one to miss a synchronized stumble, offered its own masterclass in wayward energy policy. Germany spent 20 years lecturing neighbors about Russian gas being a bad boyfriend, then acted genuinely surprised when the relationship turned abusive. Cue a panicked sprint back into the muscular arms of coal, that ex who still has the key to the basement. Poland cheered, Greta Thunberg face-palmed, and the price of firewood on eBay rivaled Bitcoin.

Down in the Global South, Sri Lanka ran out of everything except protestors. The presidential palace was occupied by citizens who simply wanted three square meals and a coherent monetary policy—demands so audacious the IMF called them “aspirational.” Television networks beamed images of jubilant swimmers in the president’s pool, a scene somehow both revolutionary and Airbnb-adjacent. If you squinted, you could see the ghost of Thomas Cook offering package holidays titled “Failed-State Chic.”

Of course, no survey of planetary misdirection is complete without the United Kingdom, which has spent seven prime ministers trying to Brexit itself into prosperity. The latest strategy appears to be renegotiating gravity itself so that trade can flow uphill. Liz Truss lasted 45 days, a shelf-life shorter than unpasteurized yogurt. Rishi Sunak now pilots a nation that has replaced “Keep Calm and Carry On” with “Keep Printing and Carry Debt.” The pound sterling, once the world’s reserve currency, now serves mainly as a cautionary tale in MBA seminars titled “How to Torpedo a Brand in 1,000 Days or Less.”

Africa, meanwhile, watches the circus with the weary amusement of a bouncer at closing time. Kenya pioneered mobile money while Europe was still faxing. Ghana discovered oil and—spoiler alert—managed to repeat every Dutch-disease mistake in the syllabus. Sudan swapped generals like trading cards, each promising this time the coup would be the last one until the next one. And across the Sahel, French troops pack up their gear, leaving behind runways, resentment, and a PowerPoint slide reading “Mission Accomplished (terms and conditions apply).”

The takeaway? Waywardness is the one truly globalized commodity; we export it, import it, hedge it, and package it into ETFs. Our smartphones promise GPS, yet collectively we have never been more lost. Elon Musk wants to put chips in our heads, presumably so the error message can appear in a more personalized font. Meanwhile, climate change keeps moving the coastline under our beach towels, a cosmic prank delivered in centimeters per year.

So here we are, 8 billion souls wandering the same blue marble, each convinced our detour is a shortcut. The good news is that history suggests we usually find our way—eventually, expensively, and after blaming at least three foreigners. Until then, keep your passport dry, your cynicism charged, and remember: if the map disagrees with the ground, the ground is probably on a TikTok trend you haven’t seen yet. Bon voyage.