Fuck, it’s finally over. 2019 and the 2010’s are now in our past. The past 10 years have been remarkably sorrowful and I’m glad they are over. It’s been full of pain and growth, sometimes pepper spray. In the first half of the decade we saw civil rights take a few baby steps forward, only to be punted back (often to a pre-2010s level) as the decade closed. In response however, we have seen historical levels of people mobilizing and beginning to take direct action; a trend I hope continues into the 2020s.
So, where do we go from here? The world is burning; especially in Australia, where people are taking refuge from the flames in the fucking ocean. Global tensions are on the way to cold-war levels; but with even more weapons pointed in all directions. Rights for indigenous and other marginalized groups are being degraded as genocides across the world rev up. And nobody in power seems to give a shit to do more than make some hollow and toothless and pandering statement before retreating back into their mansions and champagne bottles. It’s hard not to feel helpless.
Sometimes with all the tragedies it feels similar to how ISIS would “numb” people by faking out executions. After so many times of being marched off and forced onto your knees, wondering if this is the time you die, it’s normal to be chill about being dragged in front of a camera and having your life threatened because it happens so many times that you become desensitized to it. And then the day comes you are killed, and on video it seems as if you just went along with their orders with no resistance. I feel numb to so many tragedies, each one threatening the end of the world in its own way. It doesn’t end the world, or accelerate its decline, but one day it will. And I worry we will march compliantly into the end.
I don’t feel like humanity has much longer if we stay this course. It’s a humbling and existentially terrifying thing to wrap your head around. No more humans, for real. We all die starving and laying on baking dirt or something like that. The thought gives me nightmares.
What needs to happen from here is to keep fighting. Our lives are on the line. From Hong Kong to Portland to Chile to Palestine to France and so on. Every battle, won or lost, will have a ripple effect so we better keep winning. Radical change on every level is necessary; tear down power structures, don’t reform them. We also all know that corporations are the leading cause of shitholery that will fling us into the abyss, whether that be from unfair labor practices or lack of environmental concern. And CEO’s should be flung into the sun. But that is super not an excuse to not act on an individual level. Skip the straw, use reusable products instead of single use plastics, and take public transit and so on. Even if it is futile, at the very least we can perish knowing we hoped against hope and didn’t give up until the end. That we did not lay down and accept our bitter end and drown ourselves in consumption. Now is better than tomorrow to start being the person that the planet, your future self, and rest of humanity needs you to be.
In the interim while we are fighting for survival, we should be merry. Kiss, love, laugh with, hold, tell stories with your loved ones. Log the fuck off for a little bit each day and be with someone(s). Even if you just sit together and do nothing, make those moments so that you can cherish them later. Fill your heart with joy and wonder, don’t let the powers that be rob you of small joys and happy moments. In fact, experience joy and happiness is what the PTB can’t stand. They want you miserable and full of dread for the future so you’ll buy more dopamine boosters and go back to work to afford them. It is not easy, but with practice you can find something glimmering to hold onto each day. Be so free your existence is a rebellion in itself.
But don’t forget. This is probably it. If we fail to bash back on fascism and authoritarianism humanity will be degraded to the oft-recited human face under a boot. Increases in surveillance, use of AI in law enforcement, NSA-tier data tracking, malicious algorithms, facial recognition, and gods know what else, if allowed to metastasize unimpeded and unchecked by the people, will be used to quash any future uprisings or mass uprisings with a brutality that would actually be shocking.