I've seen countless people by now declaring that 2016 was a terrible year.
No, it wasn't. It's just that the trend in the world to belong to more and more rigid identities has become stronger this year than I can remember maybe in my lifetime.
Politically we have chosen our sides in such a strong way that we hardly talk to each other. People who voted in different ways in Brexit or the U.S election are hardly in speaking terms, they cannot understand each other and they don't want to. They all think that the people on the opposite side are basically child eating monsters. The same thing can be told all around the world including Finland between people who want to take in more immigrants and people who want to reduce it or people who think that Russia is the source of all evil in the world and Putin is the Satan himself and people who don't want Finland to lose it's neutrality and become part of the global power struggle (those people are called "Trolls" by the way). There is also a very strong fanaticism running the mock on the left about political correctness and identity politics where the goal has been to categorise people by their victimhood status and make every issue in the world to revolve around gender, sexual orientation or ethnicity that has managed to turn the political and scientific scene into a place where any inconvenient discovery, opinion or even a simple objective inquiry can cause an outrage and get people fired. All of this is the works of the ego trying to belong into world views that explain everything and don't leave any room for discovery and our western culture is turning more and more into a one that rather caters for all the different identities than to open space for new ideas in order for nobody to feel their identities threatened while being blind to the fact that identities cannot be protected because they are false to begin with. We have somehow lost the touch with something that within us sees everyone and everything as not separate or opposite to us but complimentary and valuable, something that can add something to our perspective. The mass consciousness wants everyone to be categorised and it's effort is to lose individuality and freedom of thinking and make world safe by making everyone fit into definitions and believe in their little prisons, shouting out "Look at my sexual orientation! Look at my skin colour! I'm this and nobody can question what I declare about myself". We have built such strong ideologies that the world might seem just a horrifying, scary place when suddenly it doesn't function according to our expectations and ideologies. Instead of questioning their own ideologies and identities people are now rioting and panicking because the world isn't what they thought it ought to be and casting blame on whoever happens to be on the other side.
Everything has polarised to such an extent that our identities as part of those ideological movements don't have any room to step back and look at ourselves critically and our agendas become so holy that the means justify the ends. We are ready to distort reality and cherry pick whatever facts support our identity. We live in a world that is vastly complex and so interconnected that our brains are simply not made to comprehend it in this age of infinite information so we try to find a way to escape our insecurity and feeling of helplessness into different camps from where we have a simple enemy who is to blame for all the wrong in the world and we don't need to talk to such a person if we have already pre-determined their agendas and motivations. We address our idea of the person who we have demonised instead of actually trying to find any common ground.
All of this is the works of identity and reality starts where identity ends. In fact only beyond identity there is reality because our identity works a medium between us and reality and it offers us a very narrow and emotionally charged view.
Beyond identity nobody is a victim, nobody is a perpetrator, nobody's experience is more valid or important than anyone else's, nobody is even special, opinions are not so important and nothing determines you ultimately and living life through identity is a constant battle because the world is not ultimately going to cater to your identity. Reality is eventually gonna come crashing into your house of cards. You will always feel insecure in you identity and you will make more and more enemies and find more cause to feel upset. It is like a hot potato you will keep holding onto and shouting "who is burning my hands?!" with no intention of letting go of the potato.
There was intrinsically nothing wrong in the year 2016. If it was a shitty year it's because your identity said so and you suffered from your identity feeling threatened, not because of what happened.
I feel that sometimes we as a collective psyche have to go through a little shaking and things intensifying and it's self inflicted because strong identities are bound to bring conflicts. It brings us ultimately to such extremes and turbulences that we will have to learn what is the root cause of all this misery. I can tell you, it's identity.
We have no chance for making external peace if we keep on protecting that which creates our inner unrest, which manifest around us as polarisation, misunderstanding and violence. It's a good wake-up call for many people to take a look outside of this battle for power over the survival of our identities and recognise that when you change your reference point from identity to presence and neutrality even the wild year of 2016 looks like a play of energy. The acceptance that comes with that realisation is the hope and the chance for some actual change.
All the data from poverty and health to the amount of wars shows us that 2016 was actually a pretty good year and it takes different kind of eyes to start to see the beauty again in the world after intense collective focus on the negative but it starts with individual honesty. You can make your world beautiful or ugly.
Ps. Don't follow news
Thank you 2016 and welcome 2017.
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