Resolution & Awareness

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

Mental fortitude

2020.

What a troublesome and rocky this year has already been. Australia fires, Covid, closed borders, global pandemic, privacy violations, limitation of movement, mass protests, all sport events cancelled, schools closed, culture on hold, people getting fired, people getting killed…The list goes on. All of that certainly has its toll to all of us. And there are 6 months ahead of us that can make it, and based on the recent world happenings it will make this year even more irksome and difficult for all of us. But to what degree was difficult and can we all learn something out of it, even if many (rightly so maybe?) want to just forget about everything and (partially) move on? Can we or better should we want that old reality back, as if nothing happened? Is that even possible?

Certainly not so. No matter why did all this happen and who is behind all of it, whether it’s mother nature or the most dangerous animal of all, it is a warning. It is a serious warning that should make people think, that something was seriously wrong with the old reality. As if people forget or want to forget about the old reality and how many flaws did that reality had. Let’s start by the global warming and people being in their comfort zone. 3 days ago I saw a picture where on 11th of June in Europe in 2019 there were 724 flights. 1 year ahead: only 34. As a direct consequence of that, the emission of carbon dioxide reduced significantly. And with that, even if for just a short period of time, the carbon footprint improved. Isn’t that something we hoped for and made global treaties in order to try to improve that situation? Isn’t that glimmer of reduced emission a positive? Yes, it came with the cost of many sacrifices, deaths and huge unemployment peaks, and maybe I am not in the position to express my opinion and say that can ever be a positive since I was never on that unfortunate flip of the coin, but I feel like I want to say something and try to highlight and depict the situation from my point of view.

There is a dilemma in my mind: Was this all caused by nature or is this all orchestrated? Or maybe even both? Which brings me to the second point that I’ve mentioned before: comfort zone or better bubble we lived in and trying to learn and draw some personal and collective aspects out of  this waking tipping point. As if someone, and I can’t say God because I am an agnostic, waited that we enter this decade and start punishing humanity. So, if they punish humanity we must have done something wrong, something that wasn’t right. Whether it is nature or humanity, the period and the year can’t be a coincidence, also because coincidences don’t exist. Let’s presume it was nature. It comes after serious years of destroying nature, one way or another one. For our personal, selfish and reckless gains. People say they care about the future, but when they say that they only think about their future. A better future for them and their families. And they don’t even see the present and the world unfolding or crashing in front of their eyes. Or even if they see it, they just want to avoid it and live in their bubble and comfort zone. Many claim that they are “global” citizens, but till the moment the Corona virus didn’t knock on their country doors nobody cared what happened in China. Is that the reality people so desperately want back? Where they can return to their consumerism, individualistic world without any or little care given? Till the point where they arrive at their finish line, feeling “happy” as if they succeeded something in life? I don’t want to write this or even think in this direction, because it’s cruel but if that is so, then this crisis was welcomed and needed. The US protests right now are needed, because they reveal problems that were deeply ingrained into the core of society. Sadly, nobody or just a small amount of people will learn something out of all this and will draw some lessons. Sadly only some will dig deep and learn something about them after months of lockdowns and being closed at home. Because people want to avoid things. They want to avoid themselves. And distract and delay everything in their lives their entire lives. Never accepting reality, never accepting sacrifice and never revealing their true nature.

Let’s pass to the “theory” that humanity or someone, whether it’s Masons or Illuminati and/or governments are behind all of this. Why would they want this? Why would they be destroying their economies? The first thing that comes to my mind is new world order and more control over people. More control through the means of social distancing. Because through social distancing and people staying at home and being constantly and more online governments can have a better image of everyone. And they can easily control people. Even the ones that acclaim themselves as rebels. By orchestrating everyone, people are more afraid than before. And for a generation like this that, the younger ones especially, that was already controlled by the online mechanism that they tweaked so that it serves them, it is devastating. Because people now are more afraid than ever before. They want to “escape” reality even more. And weren’t we taught that we should overcome our fears? Even in this scenario where it can be dangerous for our lives? Because if we live with fear, we acclimate to it, and it controls us. We lie to each other that that fear will disappear with the next vaccine. And the next vaccine. And the one after that. But if we don’t make crucial changes to our lives, no vaccine will help us. And that is what governments want. That we want to live with that constant fear, fear of the unknown and the reality. I am not saying that this virus was a hoax. It can never be. I’ve endured a 2 and a half months lockdown. And never complained. I never asked for that old reality back. Because I know it sucks. Because even there, people are controlled and reality is controlled. I read something a week ago that said: “It’s easier to control a mass of people than a single person”. If all of this was created by  “them” do we really want to go back? And wait for the next 2 years for that vaccine?

I refuse to accept that waiting and refuse to wish for that old reality. No matter who caused this and what else might come ahead, bring it life. We might have ahead a turning point, a Renaissance, a unique opportunity that we must use it. And like in every war and a major event in history, there must be suffering. Who knows, maybe I will get Covid or something else might happen to me, and I will suffer too. But I refuse to not fight back. No matter how hard it might be, and even if it’s the end. Because life is worth suffering. For the better of all of us. There must be suffering so that there is a brighter future, so that we see the sun after the rain. There is no easy way. Yes it will, and it is painful. And yes I might not feel that pain now and might not feel it, but I will embrace it and won’t ask for a false past nor false future. All of us must learn out of all this. Whereas it’s the easy or hard way. We must learn that probably nothing will be the same.  We must be mentally stronger and built that mental fortitude. No matter how hard it might be. And that the world will turn upside down. But we deserved that. And we need that.

So that we can construct a better present and future. Not just for ourselves. But for the world itself, for this planet we are living on. We must exit this crisis and this bubble or comfort zone of ours knowing that there was a reason for all of this and beat the demons out there (first ours). So that nobody can control us, so that we don’t lie to ourselves and we don’t pretend. So that we are more honest, more worthy, more intelligent and better people. So that we don’t fool each other anymore and don’t lie to ourselves anymore.

At the end of the day, isn’t that what we wished for at 00:00:01 on 1st of January in 2020, to be better version of ourselves, be happy and have a good year? Even in the darkest of times, it depends on us.