Choosing Humanity

At a moment when modern systems feel increasingly unable to meet the crises of our time, how might we choose a different future?

Rooted in Zen and Indigenous Hawaiian wisdom, the anticipated new release from the bestselling author of When No Thing Works and Who We Are Becoming Matters

When the systems we rely on are failing and every side is certain the other is the enemy, what is left to do? Writing in the fall of 2025, amid a record government shutdown and troops in American streets, Wong asks into one of the most urgent questions of our time: Will we choose humanity?

Inspiration and answers dont arrive as a new ideology or a hero waiting in the wings: they grow from a lychee tree planted by the author’s mother, from a high school choir learning to sing as one in ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi, from the Tao Te Ching, and from Indigenous principles of kinship, relationship to place, and our responsibility to seven generations. Moving between essay, poetry, and vividly imagined worldmaking, this book argues that the era of scale is ending...and that the work of repair belongs to (and depends on) small, interdependent communities. Wong shares with readers about:

Why “othering” traps all sides in the same circular cage match Microgrids: a model for local, self-reliant action when big institutions falter A stop-and-reset practice for escaping political cul-de-sacs Stillness, breath, and the hum as disciplines for staying human Everyday acts of aloha already rebuilding the world
For anyone exhausted by the fight and searching for a way forward, Choosing Humanity asks into the questions: What becomes possible when we slow down enough to listen? To each other, to the land, and to the wisdom of those who came before? And How do we inhabit this timeplace with grit, play, and creativity...for the sake of nothing less than our humanity?