I have no real reason for doing this except to serve as an opportunity to cathartically release feelings, both good and bad. The sheer amount of hardships and tribulation we’ve had to experience over the last 366 days is astounding and unbelievable that I’m struggling to find the right words to use. This year confined us to a constant and irrevocable state of trepidation that we all desperately wanted to shake off, but simply could not.
Today was just like any other day — not that I knew what any other day looks like anymore. A big part of me wished for death, or a meteor to hit my home, or for a big tsunami to fully pry open the watergates that have been keeping cities afloat. A year as chaotic as this one definitely deserved a chaotic ending; I believe it owed us that much. The show that it has been putting up deserved a proper, banger, ending to satisfy its viewers. It did not deserve to leave us quietly. It should be filling the streets with bloodlust, and filling the ground with tremors strong enough to shake the tallest mountains. It should be causing billions of people to scream out in pain, tears streaming down their faces. It should be wreaking havoc.
But much like the 365 days before that, I was left disappointed. There was no judgment day, nor was there any big showcase of power and wickedness. This year leaves with peace and no sound, a bright white spot against the dark painting it has been curating this whole time. A peace so annoying and infuriating, that my heart seethes with a quite red rage to compensate for the lack of it. A wave of anger so close to wreaking havoc all on her own.
I could blabber on and on about the obviously transformative year it has been, but I believe that everyone knows that already. In a life so routine, not one single person in the almost 8 billion inhabitants of this giant floating rock foresaw the possibility of such grave events happening within a year. We were forced to feel so big yet so small at the same time — a paradox none of us have even dared to overcome.
Saying that this year was necessary is an outright privilege that we need to acknowledge. The number of lives lost due to incompetence, greed, and evil, and opportunities missed due to fear, hesitation, and depression were far too big for our little lives to even compensate for it. We did not need a year so bad and so grave for us to realize the influence we have and the power our actions possess. That could have been achieved in a way much more humane. Despite being minute and mundane parts of a greatly complex cycle of life, the roles we play within our circles of influence are far too important for us to just disregard. We all need to do something. This is a joint effort.
You will never heal in the places you got sick in. The same way that you will not grow in the same cycles that you are used to. Life demands us to face ourselves and to destroy the projection we routinely put out; the facades we put up and the walls we build. It is only then that we are pulled out of our bubble of condescending privilege that can we see past the horizon and towards the growth that we all need.
Growing for yourself can be a bit overrated. Sometimes, it takes more than our own interests and beliefs to push us to instigate an uprising and uproar for causes that need to be stood up for. We must realize that within and beyond our spaces are people who need us. We can’t confine ourselves to our own constrained bubbles filled with fear, doubt, and anxiety. Other people need us — they need us to wreak havoc with them.
So wreak havoc; good havoc. Become radical, and be brave. Start small and do your part. Because despite all of this, you will always have a part that no one else can play. For what it’s worth, I believe in you and your strength so much more than my words can ever try to say.
