Another year dissolves into the rearview mirror, and here we are again, pretending we’ve grown wiser. The headlines scroll past like some grotesque carousel… political chaos, economic tremors, wars that feel both ancient and urgently modern, poverty that never quite makes it onto anyone’s Instagram grid. The usual horrors, really. Nothing new under the sun, as they say, though I suspect they said it with less irony than I’m mustering right now.
I’ve been on this planet for six decades, give or take, and I’ll tell you what I’ve noticed: people don’t learn. Not really. Oh, we observe… sometimes. We witness things. We click through the news cycle, nod gravely at dinner parties, share the occasional outraged post. But learning? That requires something more difficult than observation. It requires change. And change, my friend, is bloody uncomfortable.
The Art of Looking Away
Here’s the thing nobody wants to admit at their New Year’s Eve party: most of us have become Olympic-level experts at looking away. We’ve perfected it. We’ve turned it into a survival mechanism, wrapped it up in self-care language, and convinced ourselves it’s necessary for our mental health.
And maybe it is, sometimes. I’m not here to judge you for protecting your sanity. God knows there’s enough to drive us all mad.
But there’s a difference between occasional self-preservation and systematic avoidance. Between taking a break from the news and building your entire worldview from a single echo chamber. Between feeling overwhelmed and choosing wilful ignorance as a lifestyle.
I look back at the younger version of myself, the one who thought he’d have it all figured out by now, and I laugh. Not cruelly… more like that knowing laugh you give when you finally understand the punchline decades after everyone else moved on. The joke, it turns out, is that each generation thinks they’ll be the ones to finally learn from history. That they’ll be different.
We’re not different. We’re just wearing different clothes and carrying fancier phones.
The Information Swamp
Let me be blunt: if all your information comes from one place, one perspective, one ideological bubble, you’re not informed. You’re being curated. Packaged. Sold a version of reality that someone else profits from.
This isn’t about being “balanced” in that bland, both-sides way that makes everything meaningless. I’m not suggesting you give equal weight to nonsense and truth. I’m suggesting you get comfortable with discomfort. Read things that make you squirm. Listen to people who irritate you. Sit with the possibility that you might be wrong about something.
Revolutionary concept, I know.
The trouble is, we’ve built entire digital architectures designed to confirm what we already believe. We’ve gamified outrage, monetised certainty, and turned complexity into a character flaw. Nuance doesn’t get likes. Doubt doesn’t go viral. So we retreat into our corners and throw rocks at each other, convinced we’re the enlightened ones.
Meanwhile, the world burns at a steady clip, and we argue about who brought the matches.
Society Is Crumbling (And We’re Holding the Bricks)
Here’s where it gets uncomfortable: we’re not just witnesses to society’s decline. We’re participants. Every time we choose convenience over conscience, every time we scroll past something that matters because it’s too depressing, every time we say “someone should do something” while doing nothing ourselves… we’re part of the problem.
I’m including myself in this, obviously. I’m not standing on some moral high ground, looking down at the unwashed masses. I’m in the mud with you, wondering why my boots keep getting stuck.
But perhaps that’s where we start. Not with grand gestures or performative activism, but with honest acknowledgement. Yes, the problems are massive. Yes, they’re systemic. Yes, one person feels impossibly small against the machinery of it all.
And yet.
So What’s the Actual Resolution?
If I were being prescriptive (which I try to avoid, but here we are), I’d say this: stop pretending you’re powerless, and stop pretending you’re going to save the world single-handedly. Both are cop-outs.
Instead, try this:
Pull your head out of the sand. Not all the way… you’ll get a migraine. But enough to see what’s actually happening, not just what your favourite commentator tells you is happening.
Diversify your information diet. Read things that challenge you. Seek out perspectives that aren’t yours. Get comfortable saying “I don’t know enough about this yet.”
Do something small that matters. You don’t need to dismantle capitalism before breakfast. But maybe you could help one person today. Maybe you could learn about one local issue. Maybe you could show up for one community meeting instead of doom-scrolling.
Stop waiting for permission to care. Nobody’s coming to save us. Not the politicians, not the billionaires, not some magical future generation that’s wiser than we are. It’s just us, muddling through, trying to leave things slightly less broken than we found them.
The Uncomfortable Truth
After six decades on this spinning rock, I’ve come to accept something deeply unfashionable: we probably won’t learn. Not in the sweeping, dramatic, species-wide way we’d like to imagine. Humans are remarkably consistent in their ability to repeat mistakes, to choose comfort over courage, to observe rather than engage.
But some of us will learn. Some of us will choose differently. Some of us will pull our heads out of the sand, squint at the harsh light, and decide to stay there anyway, even though it’s uncomfortable and complicated and exhausting.
Maybe that’s enough. Maybe it has to be.
So here’s my resolution, which you’re welcome to borrow: I’m going to stop pretending I’m just an observer. I’m going to acknowledge that every choice I make… what I read, what I buy, how I treat people, where I put my attention… is a tiny vote for the kind of world I want to live in.
Will it matter? I honestly don’t know. But I’m tired of looking away and calling it wisdom.
The question isn’t whether we’ve learnt anything this year. The question is whether we’re finally ready to admit we haven’t… and start there.
Happy New Year, I suppose. May we all be slightly less useless in the next one.
What do you think? Are we doomed to repeat the same patterns forever, or is there hope in the small acts of showing up? I’d genuinely love to know. Drop me a line.
Until Next Time
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