DOUGLAS MODIG.SE

O TEMPORA   O MORES

2014

Looking back in retrospection often goes to prove how relativistic time is. The experience of a minute in distress is countered by the minute of bliss. They seem a decade or a split second long. Science and mathematics have en effet very little to do with it.

So many of the major events of 2013 and even in these early breaths of 2014 were already on their way in 2012 or even a century back in advance. The imacculate Now does not seem to exist because it has already passed before you have ended your thought.

The celebrations of the Occidental New Year´s Eve and the welcoming of 2014 and the numerous New Year celebrations in other cultures, calenders and concepts of time are equally socially and emotionally exciting and obviously a universal token of a "rite de passage" of substantial symbolic importance. People are remarkably unison in so many matters. The celebration of the Chinese New Year and the symbol of the year we are  associating with it has finnaly come into Occidental consciousness as well. We accept that the Muslims are celebrating the 1360 plus and that we have entered 2014.

The implicit connotation of a new, happier, more graceful year, still not contaminated by misery, violence, greed and natural disasters is the customary and widespread quintessential idea of change, a substantial and miraculous change for the better, a liberation from the chain and balls that fetter us to the emotional and physical dungeon where we seem to dwell, not yet inventive or emotionally clever enough to break free, seemingly doomed to repeat the same destructive patterns with occasional glimmers of hope which even the most pessimistic have to acknowledge...They exist, you know. The glimmers of hope and light...

I will not tire myself nor anybody else with repeating the calamities and horrors of 2013. I will intend to, and I know I may fail, try to see if there really is another side to the coin.

We all know there is. But we seldom express it openly and with emphazis. It becomes however, and as an example among many others, so obvious by soberly studying what facebook friends post on their walls. Endless encouraging and compassionate motivating proverbs, sayings and suggestions which contain thousands of years of continuous  human experiences of how to cope with life, how to live in peace, how  to love every living creature and all of the living flora. Wonderful images and clips of the bond and loyalty between man, animals and nature, affection so obviously shared between animals although somewhere on the timeline some ignorant churchfather came up with the braindead idea that animals have no souls, no emotions, instincts only.

Nicodemus taught us that woman is inferior to men after centuries of gender equality in the early Christendom and a confused and overly ambitious assembly of church fathers invented the ”Original Sin”, 300 A.D. The very idea that the newborn child is already burdened by the sins of hers/his forefathers is not only absurd, filled with misleading superstition and apalling, but, I suppose, a lofty ”explanation” as to why the human species behave like monsters on a grand or a small scale and never seems to improve.

The Pope (Franciscus), normally a marginalized and ignored person in Lutheran and secular nations, has received attention because of his rebellious attitude versus century old dogma, in addition to his personal simple habits and lifestyle, opening his arms, excluding nobody, stressing the importance of the woman in Christianity, the importance of other creeds and religions and pointing at who may have been Jesus most prominent disciple, Maria Magdalena, and hinting at a future female Pope.

The immense courage of young Pakistani girls who fight for their right for education and human rights despite continuous death threats and attacks, the endlessly patient environmentalists who, together with Transparency International and others, continue to whistleblow on toxic agricultural production and food processing and actually winning cases against transnational giants, the dangerous voluntary work trying to stop trafficking engineered by EcPat and others, the courage of people randomly risking their lives to save their next or animals in distress and vice versa makes this life worth living.

"Because we belong to each other", as Mother Teresa wrote, and many before her have said. We belong to each other wether we like it momentarily, or not. We cannot make all threats, real or imaginary, become instinct. It would eventually only result in two people finally left and ultimately one survivor.

I admire people who, without halos, without public attention, without prize winning, continue to be everyday heros and who carry some kind of sane world on their shoulders. I see them everywhere, caring for the elderly, imvesting emotionally and with genuine affection in their family life or social constellation and belonging, in the private and public relief and rescuework, in reaching out for a sinking soul without the expectations of any applause. I admire the people who do get credit, who are honored with medals and public attention, as well.

We cannot do without any of them.

I honestly believe that the ” do gooders” are at least as many as their opposites. The potential danger, pointed out by Dr Martin Luther King, and others before him, is the silent majority. To step out of one´s comfort zone in these turbulent times is a leap of faith or potentially fatale and so we hesitate....

”We don´t need another hero” sung by Tina Turner as a lead movie score of an apalling movie, ”Mad Max”, backfired. The superpowers are competing over the hero status with dire consequences for everybody involved.

We do need heros. Not Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) dropping bombs. Those must be the single most unheroic conventional warfare weapons apart from biochemcial and nuclear longdistance missiles ever.

We need heros since we, the silent majority, seem not very inclined to be heroic. We do, however, envolve ourselves in altruistic work of all kinds and to various extent. THAT is yet another example of heroism we cannot do without...The comfort of Good Old Friends long passed their prime, a kind word, holding a cold hand, warming it...

On this Valentine Day 2014, I truly wish that you may all be blessed with mended hearts but, honsetly, everday should be the Day of the Heart! 

Douglas Modig