Previously posted on my Facebook Page.
NEW YEAR THOUGHT, 2022. A humanity that is drawn inwards, “co-existing” in social media, confronts a more potent disease than the virus: Funk. Implosion of rageful inertia, confusion with waves of nonstop info. So we engage in rude jousts that take us down deeper in the dark. But we need to release the load, speak up, exhale. We can. Speak/respond in complete sentences. When you’ve made your point, disengage. Before the chat gets nasty, just write “Happy New Year!”
A New Year Thought.
A day's turnover to another year has always been celebrated as life reborn. Birthing. The last two years of Covid-19 pandemic shrouded us with a heavy blanket of misery. The physical loss can be filled with a renewed vibe of individual optimism; the economic shudder can be fixed with better leadership. But the divide that widened and the cracks that bled amongst us are harder to fix.
Yet on this day, we gather--we hug, we shake hands, we kiss-- we rejoice Life. Let's try to forgive and forget again. Love and unity in diversity are possible if only hearts are allowed to overcome hate, and people are pursued over politics. HAPPY NEW YEAR to y'all!
I am old. I have seen many New Year’s eves already. But I ride with the jolly welcoming. Enjoy! I will type up my little wishes for 2022 later but those are rather simple as we navigate the virus fear floods. Like, I’d like Dollar Tree as $1 as is, Elle Cyd The Koolcat to stay healthy, all my kids to remain calm and focused on cooking and selfies over politics and whininess, this cool house to retain its coolness, and spring/summer plants to be happier than the last. ☀💓☮️
They are rich and I am poor. Warren Buffett was $68 billion richer in 2000 and $105bn more this year; Mark Zuckerberg had $55bn last year, $118 more this year; Bill Gates, $98bn and $139bn; Jeff Bezos, $113bn and $198bn; and Elon Musk earned $25bn in 2000 and $266bn this year. Am I whining that they are super rich and I am super poor? Nope. I just enjoy “I am super poor.” LOL! 💰😂💰
Trump’s “Make America Great Again.” Biden’s “Build Back Better.” These pretty much pitch the same ideal. No different from FDR’s “New Deal” of the 1930s as America struggled with the Great Depression into the second phase of U.S. industrialization in the 1940s—which led to the Bretton Woods summit in 1944. Strengthen America. So while many diss China’s global trade expansionism as a threat to America, what really is so wrong about MAGA?
If Trump’s MAGA pursued Europe and America’s historical hawkish/military foreign policy as an expansionism tool, then I don’t concur with “Make America Great Again” or “Build Back Better.” Both are anchored on infrastructure upgrade, which was China’s focus via Deng Xiaoping’s “Four Modernizations” in 1977. Etc etcetera. Biden's BBB is cool but WTH we have a $770 billion Defense spending budget? 🗽🇺🇸🗽
The greatest, most effective distraction from reality is pop culture entertainment. Yet it is also our most effective escape from (harsh) reality and a natural way to equilibrium or mental/physical health balance. Yet in the advent of quicksilver computer technology, things evolved into an overkill. One-click, right on our palm, 24/7. So I repeat: Didn’t I tell you to focus on the road? Don’t look up! Look what’s in front of you! LOL! 😟📲😫
Anti-Christian memes flood social media. There are 2.382 billion mostly working class Christians in the world. Such a huge number and so they are insulted. The New Narrative says the Majority Working Class is Populism. And whether Populism is Right or Left, it is universally bad. You bite that pitch like a bone to a dog. And forgot that there is a term called Rich Elite, mostly Christians as well, who handed you this gadget to diss the devout. Divide and rule is profitable.
Yet religions as cultural facts don’t really differ. As huge collectives, they pursue universal good over universal bad. And humanity is far from perfection. Christian devotees and Christian haters aren’t immaculate or pure. And of course, it’d be idiotic to malign Islam for obvious reasons. ☃✝️☮️
Many "share" personal SOS to the world via social media like some sort of self-validating belongingness. I understand. But how many in here would get out of their way to stay with you till you survive the funk? But we have family and friends, in person. Three of them who have time to work things out with you right here and right now. These "alive" people negate the 4,001 in here who have ready "likes" and stickers and emojis and GIFs of wonderful approvals, 24/7. 😞😩🙃
CHRISTMAS DAY THOUGHT. “Jesus Christ was a Subversive.” Title of the editorial that We Forum, the newspaper that I first worked with, used to print each Christmas Day. Dictatorship years. We Forum was an indie vanguard of progressive ideas then. JC was a relentless activist and village organizer. For years, I worked with Christian volunteers in calamity hit places. They contract diseases, many perish. Yet they stay. I never questioned Faith that aids the needy. The Spirit of Christmas. ☃✝️☮️
The times when Left/Right politics in cahoots with profit gods decide what is constitutional, correct, or factual. You’d probably say, it has always been that way. Trudat. These days though, the pitch is blatant 24/7. “Conventional wisdom,” “writings on the wall,” or popular perception depend on which side of the spectrum you are on/in. Media is integral if not the center of this frenzy. Yet the Media chooses to tell us stuff per their corporate sponsors via partisanship BS.
So it is due us, public/consumers, to triple-check what is tossed at us. Read, dig up, research, find out more. A number of Top 10 richest individuals on earth own or have huge stakes in major newspapers or media organizations. Jeff Bezos. Carlos Slim Hulu. Warren Buffett. Etc etcetera. Elon Musk may even buy some since by now he has readers out there in the Milky Way. ETs wanna know what latest shenanigans humans are up to. 👈👽👉
The impulse to Dance existed in early primates before they taught us how to boogie. Dance has been an important part of ceremony, rituals, celebrations and entertainment since before the birth of the earliest human civilizations. Archaeology delivers traces of dance from prehistoric times such as the 30,000-year-old Bhimbetka rock shelters paintings in India and dancing figures in tombs from c. 3300 BC. So live good, love good, eat only good food—and Dance! 💃👩❤️👨🕺
