2020 : An invitation to authenticity
The roots of our current situation run deep. At Least one of those roots goes all the way down to honesty and truth.
You see, in the liberal circles that I hang around, there are so many right things to say. It is so politically correct to talk about love, inclusion, pluralism and secularism.
We thought everyone around us believed in it — at least they said they did. Then 2014 happened.
I started discovering friends whose political orientations were different from what I had assumed (or they had indicated).
Now that they did not need to signal, they could come out with their actual beliefs, the basis on which they voted.
If only we’d be open and honest about where we stand, without the pressure of being judged, we could start an authentic dialogue.
And that is what we need at the moment. I’m in an echo chamber and so are you. So let’s speak and get closer to the shared ‘truth’.
In that way, 2020 for me is a reminder. The first ‘20’ is the timeless / longer truth (that will go on for 100 years). The next 20 is the local truth — of this year.
When the two align is when I have a higher truth.
Interpersonally too, if only we were honest rather than choosing convinience, we would offer our fellow travellers a chance to see their own shadows and blind spots.
Again and again I see us fall for the easy path of being polite rather than saying as it is (especially the more agreeable people tend to do this more, I include myself in it)
If we can amplify ‘signal’ in the middle of all this ‘noise’ we will be able to nagicate the post truth world we find ourselves in.
And that in turn is the pathway to clarity — and to reducing self deception. Being able to filter bullshit outside is the same as filtering the voices of fear and delusion inside us.
So it is all one integrated process that 2020 is inviting us to engage in.
There is late capitalism getting more and more sophisticated with telling its stories and partial truths. It is creating smoke so seeing is becoming harder. It is harder to really tell what the hell is going on.
We cannot count entirely on either our senses, others opinions or the media. Truth has to painfully and slowly be constructed by each of us for ourselves.
At such a time, more than ever before, there is a role of collectives that are pursuing the truth and sharing it.
The other choice is to live in the illusions and suffer the pain they bring in the long term, in return of their short term relief.