by Denise McQuiston

I am looking into a new decade 2020. It’s like Orwell’s 1984, actual facts don’t matter in the slightest bit.
 
  Mount Everest gets pushed higher, Antarctic ice gets thinner, the North Pole gets warmer and Miami floods three times a month. But never mind, climate change does not exist. Rampant disinformation, partisan news sources and social media’s fake news is not admitting anything to us.
 
  To thrive, survive and find fulfillment, a society must contend and wrestle with ideas. I see The 2020s with passive lifestyles and convenience devices that will erode critical thinking into a superficial/desensitized culture.
 
Crops will collapse from famine, millions of people will die, and pop stars will make come back tours. The wheels of the news cycle will spin it out for a certain amount of time and no one will care. Apathy will rule.
 
  Perhaps somewhere in this decade, we will change. We will start conserving and scaling back. We will find cures for disease; we will heal. There will be a backlash to social media from the younger generation. We will get close to each other. Shortages in housing will make us stay put and share living spaces. We will get to know our neighbors and create tighter-knit communities with more tolerance. We may even take care of each other.
 
  I feel confused as I look forward to the next decade. I had a very difficult time trying to write this. I got blocked, because I could not see a future with the destruction, violence, and hatred that is bringing in 2020. I kept trying to write and the page remained blank. I chose then to observe and evaluate the next decade until some things started to make sense to me. I found a breakthrough from my fears. It is a chaotic world we live in.

  I am doing the best I can.

illustration by Denise Mcquiston

Denise McQuiston is a writer living in Massachusetts. She has studied Chinese Medicine and Qi Qong. You can visit her FaceBook page @ Self Healing movements.