I’m not allowed to complain because my year hasn’t actually been that bad. I’m in good shape, my living loved ones are well, my dead ones are rotting away peacefully, compost in its advanced stages. The sun hasn’t exploded, business as usual in the Milky Way.

And then I can’t stop thinking that it really should have been a better year. Yeah, I’ve had stuff to work on, commissioned projects I’ve enjoyed. But apart from a great project in Sicily, I haven’t been able to work on “Share The Word Project”. I’m missing slums like I knew I would. I’d got used to balancing my life between Europe with family, friends, mature gouda, smooth roads, fields of maize for livestock, power even after storms; and an enriching life in African slums, South American favelas, Middle Eastern refugee camps, water sold in plastic packets, candles when the power cuts, bismillah before, alhamdulillah after, football with anything spherical, plastic bags for any transaction, guns and cards on plastic tables, sticky tape on bank notes, thick smog, thin tires, maize for humans, handshakes with humans, hugs with humans, tears with humans. It’s hard to find life as exciting without meeting so many humans and a without a project that gives meaning to my life.

And right now I feel fine, but usually I feel like I’m living a dream. Someone’s added a new ingredient to the curry and it’s just not the same. I can’t stop thinking that it seems stupid to stop living a dream because of an ingredient that has such a little chance of killing me. I’m told that I’m doing this for others, in solidarity. Then I think about what went wrong, what made so many humans obese, diabetic and so fragile against viruses, eventually saturating hospitals, triggering lockdowns, unemployment and wrecking dreams ? Wouldn’t it be worth going to the root of the problem? Shouldn’t we try to live in healthy bodies on a hospitable planet and be able to hug humans, play football with humans, and paint all over the world with humans? Because if we can’t do all that, we might as well be compost.

For all those who see January as the beginning of a year, let’s make this one a good one! For the others احبك ايضا .