First day of 2021. Nothing much has changed from yesterday’s night hasn’t it?
I almost started the New Year sleeping because honestly I couldn’t care less, especially not in a year like this one. However, the screen on my cellphone was showing 23:55 when I was woken up by the sound of the fireworks that were everywhere on the Milan grim shadowy sky filled with clouds, uncertainties and shadows. It felt good seeing the sky lighten up but this year felt different.
Albeit being 10 km far from the city centre, I could hear the silence of all the people out there. And it felt weird. For the first time in my life this silence was not an enjoyable one. It wasn’t the silence that you hear when you are on a mountain far away from the traffic sounds in the metropolis we all live in, nor the silence you can hear on a piano concert whilst waiting for the artist to start playing.
Instead, this silence contained the suffering of all of the people near my new flat that were smiling, celebrating and wishing each others Happy New Year and of all the other people out there, of me and you, that couldn’t wait for this year to end. 2021 has to be better, surely right?
As much as I want that, not just for myself but for all of us out there, and as much as I am an optimist in life, I can’t see this happening.
Unless all of us admit that all of this didn’t make sense.
Yes we might be protected physically but at what cost? Isn’t also mental health as many doctors out there rightfully claim also important? Why does the media never report about this? Why do we only see negativity all around us?
And what’s the end game of all of this and the deadline?
Everything in life has a deadline and an expiration date. No matter how hard it might be to accept that. And everything has it’s own counterpart.
For life it’s called death.
Life is meant to be a collection of moments, a mosaic of our memories intertwined with the memories of all of the people we get to see, feel, touch and share our opinion with on a daily basis. It is meant to be feeling that silence I mentioned before whilst swimming freely at 2 AM on a hot summer night and reflecting on our lives, careers and memories. It is meant to be sharing what you have with the people close to you and the society around you, helping the old lady on the street, taking a tea with your colleagues, kissing a random girl in the club and most likely receiving a slap.
That is what makes life more beautiful and meaningful.
Not money, not fears, not living in a bubble and waiting and hoping that it will get better.
I am perfectly aware that many of us lost or knew someone that lost someone close during this politically manipulated pandemic. And I feel sorry for each one of them. I felt sorry for the victims at the explosion of the port in Lybia. I also felt sorry for the Bataclan victims in France some years ago. At the same time I feel sorry for all the people out there that are thinking about suiciding because of this pandemic. The people that can’t hope anymore and they are at their limit. Who helps them? Will a vaccine help them? No, because the damage is already done. They weren’t lucky like others to hope and dream of a better future, because if you don’t have a stable present it’s hard to have a good future and hope for it. And besides, they can’t hope even if they wanted to since their dreams were shattered.
It’s not impossible, because nothing is impossible in life, but life is meant to be lived in the present not in the future and hoping a speedy return back to normality.
Besides, do we really want to go back to a controlled capitalistic “normality” that is or was already flawed for many reasons? I certainly don’t. What I want is to return to our thoughts, to our freedom, to a life not exclusively online, to drinking a champagne for New Year all together. To a reality where we all have to understand and accept that we are fragile and not immortal. This is how the world has been created and how it will continue after this pandemic.
May 2021 bring much more awareness to all of us.
Health of course, but awareness as well.
Don’t be controlled and trapped inside more than we were before the start of 2020. Don’t be controlled by your fears, at least not too much, and live life.
Remember that nothing is certain in life and it will never be.
We are the architects of life and we are fragile, but we must continue building.
With stronger materials, bricks and ideas. With critical thinking and recognition that only by not stopping we can go forward. Only by not stopping can all the generations after ours can live a better life than we did.
This is my wish to all of you
Happy New 2021
Sincerely Yours,
CS
Controlled stranger 