Happy New Year
Let’s make it a hack
Dear Friends,
Let us welcome ourselves to this new year we are calling 2022. Though we might be tempted to call it by other names such as the third year of COVID, we will refrain. Anything is possible and escaped bioweapons can easily mutate themselves into oblivion. It happens in movies, right?
Now, I know that you, like me, probably want this year to go well. You are willing to be part of the change. You are positive, proactive and present. You have done the work and will continue to do the work, whatever that moving target entails. You’re ready to regenerate, restore and even reheel the planet. You’re ready to give the civilization a glow up and will get down to the bottom of things in order to build them back.
Better than ever and like never before you are ready to fire your canons of peace and stability into the pool of futility and make some noise. You are ready to fight for God’s secular will. You understand the point of compassion and you are ripe with empathy. This is you and this is me and this is why we have to work together to make this year a very special year.
Yes, I am writing to you today to make a request that whatever our creed or identities. Whatever our gender or hair product preference, that we dedicate to making 2022 something incredibly special. Let’s make 2022 the year of the heretic.
You might think that this is a problematic request. You might find yourself recoiling in fear. That’s a good thing. You see, to be a heretic is no small action, no minor undertaking.
To be a heretic you must have certain qualities and I will tell you the media does not like those qualities. In fact, I’ll tell you who else hates the qualities a good heretic needs but first let’s talk about us, not them.
You see, heresy is not what people today think it is. It is not a mere turning away from generally accepted knowledge. It’s not simply a decision to abandon family, tradition and dare we say it, G-O-D. No, the heretic today might be assumed to be someone who simply disagrees with something written in a religious book, or someone who haggles over tiny lines of doctrine but we know a heretic is so much more. A heretic is someone who might be contrarian by nature, they might be a stickler, a critic, a skeptic. A heretic might be that kind of person who insists on change for change’s sake, annoying everyone else, but we know a heretic is so much more.
We know that heretics are not merely impolite rebels. We know that first and foremost heretics are lovers. Yes, it’s true. To be a heretic is to show love, to stay engaged in details and discussions even to the point of nausea. Heretics do not upset their friends and family just because they can but because they absolutely must. Heretics must splice and dice in between the two sides of a story to find entirely new perspectives. To be a heretic is tireless and thankless and no one throughout history who has taken this mantle upon them has done it because they were simply bored.
We don’t have to pick our heresies today but we do have to dedicate to them. We have to understand that to really change the world we have to change our lines. To meet the emergencies that are unfolding we have to stop thinking like our grandfather’s told us and start thinking like they did. We have to employ reason and facts. We have to incorporate patience and nuance into thoughts. We have to allow for concepts to stay simple and for storylines to once again become complex. We have to stop rooting for one of two sides. We have to get polyamorous with our options. We have to be willing to transition and detransition and to transition again and again.
To be good heretics we have to look under the hood of the machines of society and we have to be willing to hack them to pieces. The thing is, we won’t be hacking them to destroy them. You see, heresy is not about destruction. Heresy is about hacking the old into something new. Now you may say that’s not always true, and I would agree with you. Nothing is always true. The vaccine is not always the best choice and being pro-life is not always pro all lives. Your body your choice, cuts all sorts of ways.
People may ask you what right you have to take up space like this. They might question your right to occupy your own mind as if it were a gun. Do not be afraid because love makes you nimble and firearms are just arms, sort of like phones are eyes and these days ears.
This is the year our scripts must move forward so we can evolve not just our discussions, not just our species. This is the year our programs must be hacked so we can evolve our video games, our drugs and our music. This may sound frivolous to some of you, but if you did a little research into these things you would see that all of this is what makes people into nations and churches. I have a lot of questions about the state of the world. I know you do too. I know that some facts are plain old facts and that fake news is the new “I’m rubber, you’re glue.” kind of tune. I know what you know and you know it better than me, so be a good heretic. Admit what you are. Admit your loves and your hates but do it productively, calmly and never along party lines.
Whatever your church or community. Whatever your family structures and models. Whatever your freewheeling hippiedom or nuclear position might be, please make this the year you hack these things to pieces. Make your tiny corner of the world better and sweeter through your heresy. Insist on true, loving heresy from others. Don’t worry about the conspiracies. Don’t get lost in the nostalgia. Go piece by piece with what is real and present stasis, and call it out. Don’t get fooled when someone you don’t know tells you that you’re too stupid or poor to know better. Admit those days you have been or are being deplorable, even if you don’t vote like it.
The systems are broken and if we don’t step in nobody is going to fix them until they’re re-mantled. We are the ones who have to start using our emoji and our emotions for good. The systems that create our society need some tweaks and we are the ones to do it.
So, please, dear friends. Let’s make 2022 the best year of them ever, including since before our oppressor ancestors made this calendar. Let’s bring back the weather we can live with and air we can breathe. Let’s talk about living in service to the trees and the water that literally supply us with life. Let’s talk about making supply chains into circles. Above all let us remember that from dust we come and to dust we return and right now that stuff is laced with an average of 250 chemicals that come from every prescription and weed-be-gone bottle. Let’s take that in and let it out through discussions that lead us into renovations. Let’s deliver this 2022 story we share from the ordinary.
Call yourself a maverick, a renegade, or an innovator. Call yourself whatever makes you feel powerful enough to be kind while firm. Call yourself a heretic or a hacker or simply get on with the practice while refraining from the language. Do whatever works, but for the love of your one life to live, make it matter this year.
