As time passes, new decades come. From an alien perspective it may seem like one more step along the forever lasting trajectory around our sun. For humanity, however, it serves a bigger purpose, it holds historical importance. The 1920s became known as the roaring 20s (in the western world) due to its exuberant culture with new dances and ways of dressing that challenged older moral standards. Now, fast forward a hundred years and realize that we humans stand at the brink of this decade which in one way or another will go down in history. It seems fitting and important to me that we ask ourselves and society what we hope the 2020s is referred to in 2120. Our answers should guide every word we utter and every action we undertake. Life is a verb and those who treat it as such will write the history of the 2020s. Hopefully they will have thought about how they want the decade to be remembered...
The time of systemic upheaval. That is how we desire the decade to be remembered. A time when progressive new dynamics enters the realm of politics to hands back a balance between nature and humans. A decade of peaceful revolution and reconstruction of the system into one which increases human autonomy and freedom while allowing the natural world, including the climate to regenerate itself. At the epicenter of this upheaval, revolution, or what have you, will be the constant basic need that all humans share, FOOD! Cities which are close to self sufficient will replace the resource devouring and countryside crushing ones we have currently designed. Small scale agriculture according to local conditions serving the local community as well the soil and earth will reinvigorate country life and a thriving countryside will again rise from the ashes of earlier urbanization. The local, the holistic and the permanent will come to replace the globalized, the narrow minded and the responsive as humans realize something better can be created in the intersection between old wisdoms and new innovation. The change will respond to the severe challenges humanity today faces from climate change to soil erosion, it will be an uplifting atmosphere of change rendering some future historians to dub the 2020s, the decade of the “doers”.
But where did it all start? It started at the grassroot level where young people, all over the world, got sick of the talking and felt like acting. They therefore grabbed a shovel and turned public biodiversity deserts, formerly known as lawns, into high producing food forests and beautiful anual gardens teaming with insects, birds and vital microbial life in the soil. These young enthusiastic “doers” take their idea of liberating humans from the slavery of bullshit jobs by challenging city planners, municipalities and large villa owners to transform their public and private spaces into high yielding gardens. The response is amazing as people reconnect with themselves and the planet, harnessing a deeper understanding that what is good for the natural world is also great for them. Strawberries, apples and potatoes flood the fridges and cut out the redundant middle men and women in the chain of food production. No more stress, no more illegal forestry, mining or CO2. The small idea grows into a movement that transforms the mindset of people and empowers them to utilize their consumer power as well as their political power resulting in a deeper democracy and increased human autonomy. Industrial agriculture ends as a consequence and the rural revolution is initiated as thousands of people flood back into the abandoned countryside in the greatest ruralisation ever seen. Small business outcompete large industries and the love for your neighbour skyrockets as you share goods and services not with the expectation of getting something in return but in good will and as decent citizens and human beings - a revolutionary transformation on its own. Humanity flourishes and so does the forests, fields, lakes and oceans. Harmony enters our world after thousands of years of human struggle as the collective lessons of human history strikes us like lightning. Cooperation finally triumphs competition. The responsive at last gets replaced by the the permanent…
As 2130 rolls around, a young child asks the teacher of the history class what sparked all of this. The teacher glanses out the window and with a smile on her face she answers “belief and the realisation of some that life is nothing but a verb”.
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