Some years are more memorable than others, and there's no doubt that this is one of those subjective feelings if we are looking at the past solar cycle from an individual point of view. Some are forgettable and disappointing by using the same perspective. If I had to judge about 2016, I would say it was one of those forgettable ones. Perhaps not really because of what happened badly or poorly during the past twelve months but rather of what didn't happen again. Perhaps it was me who once again made a mistake and had higher expectations from humanity and ended in a sort of letdown once more.
Actually, if we want to get into disappointment fast, it's easy; the only thing we need to do is to have a glimpse or two of worldwide politics and worldwide affairs. But it wasn't always like that. Every now and again we get ourselves into the illusion that things can be perfect, or better to say the least. Ever since Barack Obama was elected back in 2008, I had that feeling of rising optimism. He was, well, different compared to other US presidents and all others in the EU and the world. Promising even. I really thought things would start to change for the better, and they indeed started to change in the beginning. If you look at this image of him and Dmitry Medvedev sharing the burger in New York back in 2010, you had to admit that old ways had started to change for good. But that didn't happen. The rising star in the face of Obama's presidency and promising changes in Russian government faded out many steps backwards soon after. Why? I don't have a clue, but this year, it culminated in another election in the US with people electing a man who doesn't recognize that even global warming is a real thing. In Russia, Medvedev and Putin are exchanging places in each election, and with another Putin's turn, Russia suddenly decided to act as a worldwide military player outside their borders, just like the USA is always doing, despite all my hopes that Obama was going to change that as well. Well, that didn't happen, and instead of recurring 'burger' meetings in NY and Moscow, we are now having rising heavily armed fractions of various religious or who-knows-what-their-agendas-are based armies in the Middle East. In 2016, it culminated in endless migrant columns toward EU countries and several terrorist attacks in France, Germany, Belgium... Not to mention another wave of cold war activities with polite political threats and rising military provocations and exercises on NATO-Russian borders that, on some occasions, put a little fear into my guts after listening to the news.
If we transfer worldwide macropolitics into micro ones and, for example, start reading news with political statements of Serbian and Croatian politicians these days, I sometimes have a feeling that outside is raging a real war on the streets. Please don't ask me to translate some Serbo-Croatian political daily provocations. It's disgusting. And if we go even further, to the people level, and start reading what they are saying on social media or live, it goes even worse. Let me give you just one example: last summer I was returning from Denmark to Serbia and taking a direct flight from Malmö to Niš and had to take a shuttle from Copenhagen to the airport. When we crossed the bridge, the bus was halted for inspection by heavily armed policemen, contrary to my couple of crossings the same path without any interruptions during the last decade, and at the airport's passport control, a policeman hinted something like Swedes are way better than Danes. At the time I was convinced that he was talking about football, but now, looking at it from this perspective, I am not so sure. Month or two later another border event happened to us, this time on the Serbian-Macedonian crossing. A Macedonian customs officer took our passports and singled out our car for no reason with the words "Go park there for 30 minutes", followed with "I hate all Serbs". I couldn't believe my ears—nothing like that ever happened to us in our vacation travel history. He sweetened his talk later, but the sore expression stayed in my guts for days. And during our extended stay aside, no one inspected our car or luggage at all. It was pure bullying. He did the same to others, and for some he even pointed his flashlight directly into people's eyes.
I don't know if you are sharing my conclusion, but for me it's obvious—simple people simply and literally digest the news and follow what their leaders are saying and doing. They will always take their own leader side. At least the majority of them. No matter what. I think in MIB, agent K or J said something like this: "the person is smart, people are dumb", and in this case it looks like the ultimate truth. And if we assume that worldwide politicians are just staging and acting and doing their daily statements and provocations just for daily politics and for their own political benefits, I am afraid that people overall will not understand that. They will start to hate and act for real. And it starts with angry border policemen and customs officers. I just hope this year is only forgettable and not the start of something ugly in the following ones.
Well, although this year, with my glimpse at it, was sort of forgettable, it doesn't mean it was a disaster. Far from it. While we cannot escape political absurdity in our news feed and broadcasts, we still have our own corner of the world called family. It's a little place where everything is more or less positive and optimistic. Yes, there are ups and downs, and this year was no exception like any other, but overall, what we remember is all those bright moments that one day we can remember, for example, these words: "Yes, that happened way back in 2016, it was a great time". I guess all of us tend to forget bad things and political stupidity if they don't escalate into nightmares. I would really like to have some globally optimistic moments to share on this post, like the one in introducing the image of Obama and Medvedev, but as it seems nothing like that happened in 2016. Let's see if there's going to be some wisdom in 2017. So, while I have nothing truly positive and optimistic outside our family to share from this ending year, allow me to once again embed what was our own best thing that happened this summer. If you were reading my blog before, you would probably guess that I was most enthusiastic about our "Game of Life" short movie, which Viktor and I made this year. Indeed, I have a couple of more memories to compete for "the best moments of one forgettable year", but in the end, this project of ours gave us more than two months of entertainment without anything negative or spoiled about it.
At the end, I guess, this time I am not going to conclude anything for this post. I will leave that to you. Hopefully, in your corner of the world, the feeling is flooded with more light than in here. Instead, I will only say Happy New Year with all my wishes that the new one will be less forgettable and more... well, not. This surely will not be my last post for this year. I have plans to write a book review after I finish reading "Babylon's Ashes", the last novel in "The Expanse" series, but I am afraid it will be about the possible future of humanity if it spreads throughout the solar system with all of our animosities and hatred that made this year so forgettable.
So, stay tuned for more grim thoughts and darkness in this post sequel. :-(
Game of Life:
http://www.milanzivic.com/2016/08/game-of-life.html
Image refs:
https://blondeburgercritic.wordpress.com/author/vstrokova/
http://www.telegraf.rs/vesti/1807188-hrvatska-policija-zaustavila-izbeglice-iz-srbije-foto
Refs:
http://www.morgenpost.de/berlin/article102210830/Obama-trainiert.html
http://indianexpress.com/article/world/world-news/list-of-terrorist-attacks
Obama & Medvedev at Ray's Hell Burger in 2010
Actually, if we want to get into disappointment fast, it's easy; the only thing we need to do is to have a glimpse or two of worldwide politics and worldwide affairs. But it wasn't always like that. Every now and again we get ourselves into the illusion that things can be perfect, or better to say the least. Ever since Barack Obama was elected back in 2008, I had that feeling of rising optimism. He was, well, different compared to other US presidents and all others in the EU and the world. Promising even. I really thought things would start to change for the better, and they indeed started to change in the beginning. If you look at this image of him and Dmitry Medvedev sharing the burger in New York back in 2010, you had to admit that old ways had started to change for good. But that didn't happen. The rising star in the face of Obama's presidency and promising changes in Russian government faded out many steps backwards soon after. Why? I don't have a clue, but this year, it culminated in another election in the US with people electing a man who doesn't recognize that even global warming is a real thing. In Russia, Medvedev and Putin are exchanging places in each election, and with another Putin's turn, Russia suddenly decided to act as a worldwide military player outside their borders, just like the USA is always doing, despite all my hopes that Obama was going to change that as well. Well, that didn't happen, and instead of recurring 'burger' meetings in NY and Moscow, we are now having rising heavily armed fractions of various religious or who-knows-what-their-agendas-are based armies in the Middle East. In 2016, it culminated in endless migrant columns toward EU countries and several terrorist attacks in France, Germany, Belgium... Not to mention another wave of cold war activities with polite political threats and rising military provocations and exercises on NATO-Russian borders that, on some occasions, put a little fear into my guts after listening to the news.
If we transfer worldwide macropolitics into micro ones and, for example, start reading news with political statements of Serbian and Croatian politicians these days, I sometimes have a feeling that outside is raging a real war on the streets. Please don't ask me to translate some Serbo-Croatian political daily provocations. It's disgusting. And if we go even further, to the people level, and start reading what they are saying on social media or live, it goes even worse. Let me give you just one example: last summer I was returning from Denmark to Serbia and taking a direct flight from Malmö to Niš and had to take a shuttle from Copenhagen to the airport. When we crossed the bridge, the bus was halted for inspection by heavily armed policemen, contrary to my couple of crossings the same path without any interruptions during the last decade, and at the airport's passport control, a policeman hinted something like Swedes are way better than Danes. At the time I was convinced that he was talking about football, but now, looking at it from this perspective, I am not so sure. Month or two later another border event happened to us, this time on the Serbian-Macedonian crossing. A Macedonian customs officer took our passports and singled out our car for no reason with the words "Go park there for 30 minutes", followed with "I hate all Serbs". I couldn't believe my ears—nothing like that ever happened to us in our vacation travel history. He sweetened his talk later, but the sore expression stayed in my guts for days. And during our extended stay aside, no one inspected our car or luggage at all. It was pure bullying. He did the same to others, and for some he even pointed his flashlight directly into people's eyes.
Migrant crisis at Serbo-Croatian border
I don't know if you are sharing my conclusion, but for me it's obvious—simple people simply and literally digest the news and follow what their leaders are saying and doing. They will always take their own leader side. At least the majority of them. No matter what. I think in MIB, agent K or J said something like this: "the person is smart, people are dumb", and in this case it looks like the ultimate truth. And if we assume that worldwide politicians are just staging and acting and doing their daily statements and provocations just for daily politics and for their own political benefits, I am afraid that people overall will not understand that. They will start to hate and act for real. And it starts with angry border policemen and customs officers. I just hope this year is only forgettable and not the start of something ugly in the following ones.
Well, although this year, with my glimpse at it, was sort of forgettable, it doesn't mean it was a disaster. Far from it. While we cannot escape political absurdity in our news feed and broadcasts, we still have our own corner of the world called family. It's a little place where everything is more or less positive and optimistic. Yes, there are ups and downs, and this year was no exception like any other, but overall, what we remember is all those bright moments that one day we can remember, for example, these words: "Yes, that happened way back in 2016, it was a great time". I guess all of us tend to forget bad things and political stupidity if they don't escalate into nightmares. I would really like to have some globally optimistic moments to share on this post, like the one in introducing the image of Obama and Medvedev, but as it seems nothing like that happened in 2016. Let's see if there's going to be some wisdom in 2017. So, while I have nothing truly positive and optimistic outside our family to share from this ending year, allow me to once again embed what was our own best thing that happened this summer. If you were reading my blog before, you would probably guess that I was most enthusiastic about our "Game of Life" short movie, which Viktor and I made this year. Indeed, I have a couple of more memories to compete for "the best moments of one forgettable year", but in the end, this project of ours gave us more than two months of entertainment without anything negative or spoiled about it.
Scenes from the "Game of Life" short film
At the end, I guess, this time I am not going to conclude anything for this post. I will leave that to you. Hopefully, in your corner of the world, the feeling is flooded with more light than in here. Instead, I will only say Happy New Year with all my wishes that the new one will be less forgettable and more... well, not. This surely will not be my last post for this year. I have plans to write a book review after I finish reading "Babylon's Ashes", the last novel in "The Expanse" series, but I am afraid it will be about the possible future of humanity if it spreads throughout the solar system with all of our animosities and hatred that made this year so forgettable.
So, stay tuned for more grim thoughts and darkness in this post sequel. :-(
Game of Life:
http://www.milanzivic.com/2016/08/game-of-life.html
Image refs:
https://blondeburgercritic.wordpress.com/author/vstrokova/
http://www.telegraf.rs/vesti/1807188-hrvatska-policija-zaustavila-izbeglice-iz-srbije-foto
Refs:
http://www.morgenpost.de/berlin/article102210830/Obama-trainiert.html
http://indianexpress.com/article/world/world-news/list-of-terrorist-attacks