The Need for Courage, my 2019 reflections

This year, I’m a little late to write my new year’s reflection because I had high fever, my temperature wouldn’t go below 39 (102 f) for two weeks straight. What’s worst, I had to fly from Dubai to Sydney with high temperature, worst experience of my entire life, maybe with the exception of when I had a high fever as a two years old and the hospital in Lebanon put me in a tub full of ice until my father realized what they did and snatched and ran out of the hospital. So, I welcome 2020 delirious with fever and a concoction of many fun medicines.

I am on fire, Australia is on fire, and now Iraq and whole middle east will be on fire. 2020 will be a hot year indeed. Change is in the air mixed with the thick smoke of the fires just south of Sydney. We just arrived from Dubai with big plans that requires courage. Courage for what? Let’s leave aside my personal journey and talk about what courage means in the year 2020. I think it’s easy to be swept up with the media hype and just follow the crowd. It’s easy to be afraid to say what’s really on your mind when there is a trending hash tag that is completely the opposite. That is why I say 2020 needs us to have the courage to speak up. Speak up if we think the fires are caused by global warming and they should be reversed, speak up if we think it’s bullshit. Speak up if you’re for gender neutrality — or not. Speak up if you’re for net neutrality or not. Speak up if you believe Palestine should be freed. Speak up if you think there should be only one state not a Palestine nor an Israel. Speak up your mind and avoid political correctness at any cost. Let’s have open honest debates. I only respect you if you speak up your mind. I realize that some of my friends maybe surprised by those views, blame it on the high fever if you wish.

To follow on the path of my own advice I will have the courage to say: that even though I understand the anger about the fires and global warming, and I accept that it is partly true and surely justified. But all the voices that suddenly has this anger are somewhat misguided, reactionary at best, riding the wave of anger at worst, nothing more than a trending topic and an easy way to follow the hash tag #angry_australia_fires. Those are hollow words. I’m speaking up to say it is too late to reverse global warming. Instead we should be thinking about a slow reeducation. A slow reverse of deforestation. We have to build a culture of less meat eating — put a huge tax on it. No more large cattle farms. We should look at population control through education in third world countries. We can’t reverse global warming but we can set up a new post-apocalyptic culture so when all is dusted we can nurture a sustainable healthy mind-set that can slowly rebuild nature. I know my views are somewhat unpolished and I bet you can poke many holes in them and that’s fine. This is about speaking up my mind. Having the courage to be honest with one’s self and others. It’s the sort of respect we should demand from others — and of course of ourselves.