2020 : A paradoxical time

The world is going through a strong shuffle — with widespread political unrest, fluctuating economy and environmental triggers: the introduction to the new decade has been full of disturbances to say the least. In the end, we can expect that it will impact us at an individual level.

Image credits: JR Korpa on Unsplash

The last year was a roller-coaster ride, and this one is a defining end to a decade, and start to a newer one. We’re going through massive transformation, and we see it around us at all times. Here are a few early signals for this year with already two months in. These are the changes I see around myself and within myself too, a few areas to talk about.

Ideology Polarisation

In this time where everyone has an opinion, we’re holding on to our perceptions of identity quite strongly. Aligning to one pattern of thought is becoming what we are as people — liberal or conservative? left-aligned or rightist? It almost feels like there’s no space for the messy middle anymore, it’s black and white. People are attaching themselves strongly to one set of ideas and defending these ideas to the last bit, without really absorbing what these ideas mean to themselves.

Managing Sanity

While aligning towards one side of the world-views is prominently trending, inside each individual lies a messy middle, where there is confusion about what one feels, thinks, understands, makes sense out of — that’s where we’re all losing sanity. Managing mental health to meet and align with inner selves has become a challenge of sorts for most. While on one end, we’re talking about the outer world, there’s people influencing our opinions and approaches, on the inner side, there are systems and lifestyles becoming popular. The world is buzzing with mindfulness as a practice, with mental health being talked about more openly, and discussed on social media platforms.

Alternating narratives

Living in a paradoxical world, while the world is being seen as black and white, there are popular belief systems for the multiple shades of grey.

Stemming from the idea of looking inwards, and realising the power of narratives, we are slowly learning to distance ourselves from one narrative or story to something.

Humankind is collectively getting to a space where we see multiple realities, multiple truths and narratives existing in parallel to each other.

It’s still a long road to understanding the theory of everything, but it makes sense that finally, we’re onto a path where we accept the idea of conflicting contexts and ideas of the world.

Perpetual Cynicism

Hope is almost an unknown concept now, if we tend to hope towards something, it’s often seen as ‘naive optimism’. That’s why we enter spaces, meet people, develop relationships with an already disappointed approach, ‘hoping’ nothing can let us down then. The inner cynic makes us question things just for the sake of questioning, but not adding on to or contributing to the idea, but merely disregarding it. Perpetual cynicism is setting in slowly and grappling us. While there’s nothing wrong in looking at the world with a critical eye, but turning cynical makes it into a practice where one lives in their own heads for too long, looking at the world from a rather dark-tinted shade, instead of its realities.

Aligning with these paradoxical signals I see today, I feel a bit off-centre, a bit worried, quite anxious, and disconnected to say the least. This calls for transformation though, one that results into growth and reconnection with the self, and in turn with others.