When I tumbled out of my bed this morning I walked downstairs, squeezed some juice out of two oranges, baked an egg and put some bread on a plate. Breakfast, nothing out of the ordinary. But when I opened my newspaper (it's Dutch) there was a two page long story concerning 2008 and 2009. To paraphrase, it said that it was only a matter of a few hours before the worst year in human history was about to begin, but apparently no one realized this. The writer even compared today with 12-31-1938, in '39 the Second World War began, but on the last day of '38 no one realized that the next year was going to be horrible.
The argument that was used to defend the thesis of 2009 being the worst is that there's a credit crunch going on and that the world economy is running straight into a recession.I don't think that a big part of the SuperForest readers read the story, simply because our analytics page says that the vast majority of our readers speaks English. But I can imagine a few people walking around with negative thoughts about tomorrow, about the coming year, about what the future holds.
One of the only reasons to be afraid of duemilanove (Italian for twothousandandnine) is that you have less money to spend. Everyone must reckon that a decrease in budget isn't something you wish for, but in my humble opinion there are worse things that can occur to you. War, viral pandemic, natural disaster or nationwide corruption, all worse in my eyes.
And by the way, it's a fact that the economic growth goes according to a wave movement. Seven years of increasing growth, seven years of declining growth; that's probably Economics 101. So here are four rules concerning positivity, think about them when it's not going that well with your bank account.
- Hope for the best outcome
- Go for the best outcome
- Expect the best outcome
- Be happy with whatever the outcome is
But lets focus on something other than money, money isn't the thing that keeps the world together, is it? (Though it is the impression the media gave me for the past half year, every newspaper contained at least one article on the stock markets). I'm not saying that money isn't important, in the Western World living without money gets very difficult but it can also be very interesting, have you seen the excellent movie Into The Wild for example. It's about a brilliant student that gives up all he has and then starts to travel to Alaska. Where he plans to live in the wilderness.
The film delivers a very good job at showing the things that are important in life (excluding possesions of course). Love, family, nature, relationships, passion, friends, dreams and ideals are sometimes forgotten in a world that spins around quotes and interest rates. But fortunately that's where SuperForest comes in. For the time I've worked here I felt nothing but positivity, love, passion and dreams coming true. Whenever I get a bit gloomy about the things happening around me, about things that happen in the world I live in, I visit this page on the internet. A page that makes me realize that if you look hard enough, you'll find more good than bad stuff.
All this wouldn't be possible in the first place without ten excellent authors, of which I'm a proud part. SuperForest wouldn't be possible without Jackson, the creator and driving force behind all our productions. You're all awesome and I figured that the end of the year would be a good time to drop a digital 'thank you' note.
And then there's you, the reader. Thank you for such an awesome year packed full with comments, positive critique, awesome letters and radical tips.
While the successor of 2008 is almost knocking on our front-door the only thing that lasts me to do is wish you an extremely happy, bright, healthy, sustainable, beautiful, loveable and SuperForesty 2009.
While the successor of 2008 is almost knocking on our front-door the only thing that lasts me to do is wish you an extremely happy, bright, healthy, sustainable, beautiful, loveable and SuperForesty 2009.
Posts
4 comments:
Beautiful post Julius, I feel so lucky to be able to call you a teammate. And thanks for the shout out to Into the Wild, that has got to be one of my favorite films. 2009 will be a great year. We have spent some time imagining the possibility of a bright future for our planet, now's our time to create it.
Happy New Year! (almost)
Love and Gratitude to ALL.
There is literally not a single day that I do not recommend SUPERFOREST to someone. In fact, I befriended a complete stranger in a cafe today and they went home with a napkin scrawled with "superforest.org --> cool site!"
Happy New Year! To Jackson and all you hard-working amazing superforesters...
Luv,
Christine
PS> And, of course, thanks for all your help in 2008 w/ my food storage dilemma!
Hey Julius! Thanks for the great (and always insightful and uplifting) post! I am looking forward to a great new year!
And Christine--thanks for the great drawing! You rock!
Cheers!
n
Not to be negative, but perhaps, somewhat realistic. First, I loved the movie Into the Wild (have you read the book? I'd loved it just as much, if not more!). But, such a life isn't desirable to everyone. He had it extremely rough at times, and while I think many, many people want the freedom he had (being on the road, traveling, searching, meeting people), in the end it wasn't that romantic. Hollywood made it more romantic than it was in the book. The boy died. He left many, many people sad: people whose lives he had changed by being with them, if but for a relative moment. Many people missed him tremendously when he died. Then again, maybe that's enviable.
As to money, as long as people have enough money to buy food, live in safe, sanitary locations, and take care of themselves (maintain somewhat healthy standards), I agree with you that money doesn't really matter.
But, on the other hand, I think that if wages decline too far, more and more people are going to find themselves stuck in a position where they can't take care of themselves, where they can't feed themselves and feed their families, where schools and progress are stunted. Perhaps that is desirable to some, but I love knowledge and intellectual pursuits. I don't want to see the economy fall into some dark age; not that that will happen. But I guess it could. I'd like to see people be able to make enough money to survive through the times. Money does help the world turn. People didn't have it during the depression and it made things very difficult. Trade stalls. People are hurt.
Take care and Happy New Year =)
Post a Comment