What a year it has been. It’s been like this for a few years now. At the end of every year, since about 2016, it seems, we look ahead and hope for a less crazy one. Please, we say, let this year not be as crazy as the last!
And every single year has been crazier. Every New Year, we say the same thing all over again. I don’t remember this being such a phenomenon in the past. I remember when the New Year was a time when some of us made resolutions about what we wanted to improve in ourselves and our lives. On New Year’s Eve we partied, or did our own private thing, assessed the year behind us, and anticipated the changes we might make to improve our lives, change our bad habits. But did we ever look back on every previous year as an absolute train wreck the way we do now?
I know only one thing about the year to come, and it is this: it’s going to be even weirder. So much weirder I can’t even imagine it. Guaranteed. The crazy quotient of each passing year is increasing exponentially. Every year is stranger than the last. It’s like we’re hurtling toward a ‘weird’ event horizon. It’s not the AI singularity we should be bracing for, it’s the weirdness singularity. I don’t think we’ve crossed it yet, but… maybe.
We’ve fallen down the rabbit hole, or stepped through the looking glass; that’s more like it. We’re in the backwards mirror world now, looking out at “normal,” but unable to reach it. Nothing makes sense anymore.
In the year to come, I resolve to roll with the changes. To dance with them. To look for what’s right, question my assumptions, and prepare for the strange ahead. What else is there to do? Oh, of course sometimes I’ll protest and complain. I’m human, after all. There’s real release in expressing frustration with the stupid choices made by the deciders of the world, especially when those decisions intrude unacceptably into my life and community. Ultimately, though, I will adapt. We will all adapt, or else start blowing gaskets and leaking in public.
Can’t have that. Must… contain… self…
Thing is, as local songwriter John McLachlan sings, “The future will always win.” You can’t stop what’s coming, if it’s coming. You can’t step in front of a speeding train without getting smashed by it. Some who are trapped on the train might fight their way to the engine and shout in the engineer’s ear, only to be told, sorry! The brakes are broken and there’s no stopping this thing.
History has momentum. The events, however weird, destructive and nonsensical, that are playing themselves out now must carry on to their bitter or natural conclusion. Perhaps those of us not trapped on the train, who still have the will, can run alongside and lend our weight to slowing it down, even rescue those few that we can. Maybe that’s futile. But what else is there to do?
We can effect small changes here (I hope) and there (maybe). We can probably mitigate some damage. Protect a few. But this thing will play itself out. I’m becoming convinced George Carlin was right: the owners will have their way, and they do not care what we think or say. The majority, whose numbers are required to have any effect to slow or even stop the train, are too busy munching processed snacks and scrolling their TikTok feeds to notice or care. Or else they are occupied with a titanic struggle merely to survive and they have no spare brain cells to pay attention to the bigger picture.
The masses aren’t listening, and those who are listening already know. Futile or not, I won’t stop saying what I think. That’s how I’m wired. And even though nothing seems to be changing, despite so many miraculous scientific breakthroughs revealing in depth what an interdependent, complex, diverse wonder this living planet truly is; despite the many brilliant alternatives being discovered to generate energy, clean the oceans, grow food, and so much more; despite all the kind, loving hearts working together, striving, saving all they can, I’m going to continue to feel it all. I’m going to laugh and dance and cry and shout and sing as hard as I possibly can.
There will still be a world when this weirdstorm has passed. Whenever that happens, I have faith in this living Earth. I believe she knows what she’s doing, no matter how it looks and feels right now. And I know, deep in my bones, that we crazy, destroying humans are collectively acting on her behalf. That in the very long run, somehow, it’s going to turn out that something is right about this.
I don’t know what it is. But this New Year, I choose to believe in the good. Faith, it’s said, can move mountains. Faith can grease wheels and encourage life to grow. Faith is an exercise, a practice, and I commit to deepening mine. I’m not talking about faith ‘in something’, God, a religion, leaders, the ones who know. Faith is simple. I have faith in blessings, in life itself, unfolding all around me, in vast entities, like this world and this cosmos, to evolve always in the direction of love.
Life feels better with a little faith. It’s not easy against all the evidence but it works for me. Give it a try, if you haven’t already.
My wish for you all is that you each have the best year you possibly can given the circumstances. I wish that all your crises be awakenings, that your lives evolve lovingly, that it all works out one way or another. Happy New Year!
That’s what I think. What do you think? Email me at phoenixonhornby@gmail.com
