My resolution? Revolution!
I am one of those people who always makes New Year’s resolutions that I break by January 2nd. I still have pounds to lose, clutter to toss, books to read, and exercise regimes to implement. I’ll bet many of you can relate to this. However, 2021 is going to be different, right?
You bet it’s going to be different! I’d say it’s almost a matter of life and death. This is why we don’t just need to make a New Year’s resolution, we need to make a New Year’s revolution!
Okay, that sounds a little melodramatic, but I’m serious. What we resolve to do in 2021 will not only impact our physical and mental health, but also the health of our society at large. Indeed, the stakes are high, running from our freedom of speech to our freedom of movement, and much much more. Our very existence on this planet may be hinging on how we act and react in the upcoming days, weeks and months.
One of the first issues concerns this Medium article that I’m writing right now. It is dependent on this wonderful platform that may one day be co-opted by an entity that will be less generous with the flow of ideas- what I can write and who gets to read what I write. Our access to information has already been compromised by both corporate mainstream and social media through selective reporting and heavy-handed censorship. If that weren’t frustrating enough, we are also finding it more and more difficult to gather and share ideas face to face with government closures of cafés, bars and community centers. The right to collectively protest out in the open air has also been suppressed. To reach out to one another, we are more and more dependent on privately-owned internet platforms, which not only have a dodgy reputation in regards to respecting our privacy, but can also be switched off at will. We can’t even rely on the postal service like before. Accessing and sharing information is the foundation of our evolution and should never be jeopardized. This is one thing to consider in our revolution/resolution.
In the same way we have found ourselves curiously held hostage in the media and communications realms, we have become more and more dependent on how we access our basic needs. Consolidation of retail sources and their supply chains to only the biggest of players means that we will no longer have a choice in the products we buy and the price we pay for them. Smaller players are getting swallowed up, forcing us to go to the giants, who have consequently gotten more and more powerful. They are now in the position where they can control the pricing and availability of essential products, essentially playing God with supply and demand. When Amazon bought out Whole Foods, it seemed like good news. Yay! we can get cheaper organic foods! But what is happening is that it is edging out local producers, who won’t be able to compete with Whole Foods’ lower margins. Some will end up being feudal-like suppliers rather than farm-to-table sellers. What Jeff Bezos decides to do once he’s cornered yet another market will be his choice, but I’ll wager his bottom line will take precedent over our well-being. Food and resource self-sufficiency are primordial to our existence as sovereign beings. This is another thing to consider in our revolution/resolution.
Education, health care, banking, law and many other fields are being nudged into the AI era. As a teacher, I won’t say that this is all bad, as I think that new technologies could be helpful educational tools, but we are sliding down a slippery slope of being replaced by AI altogether. This conspiracy-worthy thought has been foreshadowed in more flowery contexts by many visionaries from Jacque Fresco’s when he lays out his utopic Venus Project to Elon Musk’s musings on transhumanism. Ever since the industrial era, humans have been considered as man-hours, units of productivity: we are just cogs in the industrial machine. Now we are being pitted against robots in almost every domain. With AI extracting and improving upon human cognitive processes, we will just be easier to replace, with people like Musk giving us the soft-sell to make the bitter pill go down easier. However, we neglect to value the essential difference between humans and AI: we are real, not artificial. So, we need to nurture this critical element that sets us apart from machines. Consider this as one more resolution in our revolution.
I see the Covid pandemic as the latest manifestation of what medicine has become: a political tool, a social manipulation experiment and a way for the elite to make scads of money. Some will see the Covid vaccine as our salvation, while others will see it as the final stage of the Great Reset and the establishment of a New World Order managed by malevolent oligarchs. Whatever your views on Covid, one thing we can agree on is that we have never been so focused on our health than over this past year. This is a good thing. We realize that major changes need to be made, whether it is in how we take care of our own health, how we interact with our medical practitioners, or how our governments manage our healthcare as a whole. These need to be considered together, as they are dependent upon each other. We need government structures that prioritize health education, create policies to eliminate toxins in our environment, and ensure that our food and water make us healthy, not sick. We need doctors that work with us, not against us, on our health journeys. And we need to be more proactive in informing ourselves and adopting healthy lifestyles. In spite of all the focus on stopping the spread of Covid, there has practically been no mainstream media reports on how to just be healthy. We are currently experiencing epidemics far worse than Covid: obesity, diabetes, cancer, depression, malnutrition, addiction… Our backs are up against the wall: now is the time to act, starting with ourselves. So, we will add this to our revolution/resolution list.
Finally, there’s a lot of inner work to be done. You are ultimately the ruler of your kingdom- your body, your head, your heart. Once you have truly realized that, you can start setting up the laws of your kingdom- what you want out of it. We have allowed ourselves to live in fear. We have let others think for us for too long. These people- decision makers and influencers- are deciding our fate, and if you’re like me, I’m not too crazy about what they have decided. Let’s chart another course. This will actually be the starting point of our revolution/resolution. So, let’s go!
Note the circumflex over the “ê” in the word “rêvolution”: this is intentional. Rêver is French for “to dream”, and this is what we all really need to do. We need to start dreaming our way out of this mess. We need to get a firm idea of what we want our world to be. Of course, I’m talking about mindful visualization though meditation. It’s not just superficially imagining, but also feeling the sensations of this new, beautiful normal that you have created. It also involves the deep gratitude for this world that you have yet to see transformed. It’s not all that hard to do, but at this moment in history, we need all hands on deck, administering a constant, karmic IV for our suffering common humanity and the ailing planet we share. My personal resolution is to engage in this practice on a daily basis. Whether it’s right when you wake up or as part of your wind-down routine in the evening, I would suggest 10–20 minutes a day. If you’re like me, you’ll see meditation as your magic wand, transforming your reality in wondrous ways. Give it a try!
The next stage of the revolution is to get yourself healthy again. “Everybody’s healthy until they are sick”: that has been my motto in response to the Covid pandemic. I personally believe that its multiple manifestations are rooting out long-dormant issues that would have eventually surfaced This would explain why some people are asymptomatic, some lose their sense of taste and smell, others end up in ICU and some die. Time and time again, vitamin deficiency is at the core of many Covid cases. This covers most of the alphabet: Vitamins C and D are at the top, but B, K, E are essential to our health as well. Zinc and Magnesium are boosters, too. If you’re able, get a good blood screening to see if you are lacking in vitamins. Next, work on what you eat. Keep it simple- cut out all sugars as much as possible, including carbs. Sugar, the fuel for whatever ails you, is a nasty immuno-suppressant. A single can of Coca-Cola knocks out your immunity for 4 hours. Drink filtered water, extracted juices and green tea. Avoid dairy, especially milk, which is like glue for viruses. Eat more green leafies and less meat. Or don’t eat at all. Fasting is becoming one of the top health regimes out there. Work with a trusted coach and start easy- skipping breakfast and working your way up to a 5- or 7- day water fast. After the excesses of holiday feasting, I plan to get back on track with brief juice fast followed by a 10-day water/herbal tea fast. It’s an excellent way to detox…and of course, lose weight!
Next step is to work on your sleep. This is a simple way to regain mental clarity and physical resilience, and yet this is what we neglect the most in our health regimen. We are largely sleep-deprived, and this deprivation impacts our immunity, our mental/physical performance, our weight, our longevity, and so much more. Things that hinder sleep that we can control include blue light exposure, room lighting/darkness, room temperature, caffeine/alcohol intake, and daily routines. UC Berkeley sleep scientist Matt Walker is one of the foremost experts in the field- he can get you off to the right start. After learning just how critical it is to get a good 7–9 hours (or more!) of sleep, I plan on implementing as many as Professor Walker’s suggestions as possible after my last hurrah on Dec 31st…of course!
I haven’t touched on that last pillar of our personal kingdom: our hearts. Our souls have taken a beating with never-ending Covid vaccine/mask debates and political fisticuffs from the 2020 election cycle. Families have been ripped apart; long-standing friendships destroyed. This may take time, some forgiveness, and even some pride swallowing, but we have to dig down deep and work on the love upon which most of these relationships are based. At the very least, if reconciliation is not possible, try to “deprogram” any residual negative emotions you may be harboring. As I write these words for you, I’m reminding myself of what I have to do. The feelings of love generated by meditation are soothing and the RX we all need. Once again, guided meditation has helped me with this, and it will help me again.
Now that we’re getting our health regimens back on track, let’s work on the revolution outside our personal kingdoms.
What to do with those damned masks? We are less and less able to communicate- our face coverings block an important means of expression. As a teacher of English as a Second Language, the masks have been a major hinderance in my classes. Given that mask-wearing is enforced with some form of punishment like fines, expulsion, or even just finger-waving from a Karen, we have to be creative in “getting around the muzzle”. For me this means resorting to the lesser-of-two-evils: online classes, where I can at least see my students’ faces. I also wear a transparent plastic shield, so people can at least see my smile. In fact, I smile and make friendly eye contact more than ever now. I have a small but intrepid group of friends who will still give the standard French air kiss on both cheeks, albeit a tad self-consciously. This greeting is usually followed by a long discussion on the latest arbitrary measures imposed by our government- and what we can do to fight them. I occasionally tack up posters on vaccines mandates, mask issues, the gradual erosion of our constitutional rights or my rant du jour on my front door. I wear slogans on my yellow bike vest. I write articles, respond to Tweets, broadcast live streams, and get around Facebook’s algorithm by posting via messenger. This is what I have done and will continue to do- I think we should all be reaching out and communicating by any means possible. Revolutions don’t happen with people in isolation, and yet this is the direction in which we are heading, so we need to speak up now. Connect, connect, connect!!!
We are stressed by this dark, new way of “living” that we have been thrust into. Joe Biden keeps piling on the dread with this “Dark Winter” that we will have to endure. We are living in a paradigm that has been imposed on us for generations. We’re never going to change this system because we are enslaved by it: we live in a debt-based economy that has become a cancer to our existence. We are dependent on corporate news, big pharma health care, education by indoctrination, and nutritionally depleted food. We pay taxes and yet our public services are going down the toilet. We pay interest to banks, but get less in return from them. We pay into costly insurance plans, but get screwed by them when we need it the most. And when push came to shove, when Covid forced thousands of small businesses to shut down, the government threw their constituents under the bus. So, until we create a parallel system that pretty much snubs the oligarchy we’ll remain under their thumb. The good news is that the Transition Movement, started by Rob Hopkins, offers so much hope through accessible concrete projects anyone can participate in at a local level. Plant a garden, volunteer at a “giveaway boutique”, even create your own local currency- it’s all possible. Connecting with others in a positive paradigm shift is the best way to beat the Covid blues. Resolve to get involved.
There you have it- a fairly complete starter list of ways that you can improve your life and buck the system at the same time. First, remember that your beliefs are yours, then by focusing on what you can change, you will inspire others to do the same, and before you know it, a rêvolution is on its way! Namaste, and have an excellent 2021, peeps!
