The World according to Gry

What I learned from 2013
I am a Danish journalist with a passion for travelling, writing and teaching. This blog is my hobby, and since this is my blog entry number 100, I thought I would not exclude all my English speaking friends from reading some of my thoughts about our world after yet another adventurous year travelling in Denmark, Sweden, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Nepal and the US. 

Personally I began 2013 on a ranch in Texas Hill country where I celebrated the coming of the new year with a big group of people from the local Burning Man community. "Burning Man" is an artistic festival in the Nevada desert held every year celebrating human creativity. After having covered international matters, politics and stories related to the financial crisis for years, I was in a state of mind already then expecting the year to become somewhat defining. But I had not at that time fully grasped, that the "polar bear plunge" in the Texan creek on the ranch that night would introduce a year as fast moving and unpredictable as a black snake... And when life takes new turns and you start realising how unstable your situation actually is and always will be, you tend to begin to consider your basic values. So did I:

What are your values?
2013 was for me personally all about figuring out my "values", because as I see it, in a world with changing power structures, battles over resources and a shaken financial system I find the need of an ethical compass to make me capable of navigating wisely increasingly important. And by values I mean asking myself the basic tough questions: What do I spend my time on? What am I building? And what is really important to me when it comes to money, assets, relationships, health and time?

I believe we live in a world in the middle of an extraordinary paradigm shift, and that our horizons are still covered in a mist of illusions with extreme wealth and extreme poverty dimming our instincts of "the truth" and what is essentially important to us. Possibly due to a lack of inner development compared with the one we have materialised with our smartphones and wifi, connecting us and our brains.

The positive thing is, that the constant communication and interaction across borders makes us meet each other on a more equal level, so that we can learn from each other instead of impose our own values on others through warfare or aid. That means we then become more aware of our own cultures and values, mirroring ourselves in others, which I believe slowly will change our perspectives on many things in a more humanistic way: Because by getting closer and getting to know each other better, we will become aware of what terms like "happiness", "freedom" and "democracy" really mean to us.

Let us stop consumerism and preserve nature
When I was binge-shopping in an American mall in 2012 – because of all the great things I just felt an instant urge to buy – and afterwards saw the holes and craters in the petroleum terrain of Louisiana, I realised once and for all exactly how dear the wild nature I've experienced in Kenya is to me as a human being, and why the Western world cannot spend it's way out of our crisis. Because honestly: We are over-weight, and we do not really like the view of a pillaged land, and at some point we will stop trying to hide, that we feel awful about it, and start acting differently.

And this new "transparency" is the same I think challenges the Middle East, where people have had enough of unjust rulers and exploitation but do not really know the alternative. Unfortunately at this stage to the benefit of the strongmen in the shadows of society, which I recently talked to a couple of Syrian refugees about. In some places on earth the growing awareness of values like "freedom" and "democracy" therefore leads to chaos because of the lack of visions and leaders that can overcome divisions.

Behind this increasingly unstable situation there is a growing awareness of values around the world making 2014 a year with potential for more revelations of what "things" are really worth. I tend to believe that the vanity driven Selfie culture making us document and share all our images on "the good life" with mobile phones and on social media will have the effect that we increasingly will become aware of, what is actually important to us and what is not. What is truly happiness and what is merely shallowness.

Forget Google enlightenment and cultivate your inner artist
The main problem however, as I see it now, is that we might be in a time of Google enlightenment of certain people and places, but our technology and the working pace in our non-materialistic industries set by capitalisms craving for constant growth is eroding our very ability of being truly creative and critical to renew the world.

At the same time we are gaining awareness of our common destiny and true values of human lives, we are starting to overdose on information and tunnelling our views through invisible filters giving us "what we want", and thereby not the surprises and truths, we need.

The new hope seems to be the sad dream of our super computers collecting big data. It might hold the opportunity for us to get "smarter" in terms of watching and monitoring the consumers of the world, but not wiser in terms of building a world on values that are healthier, more peaceful or more sustainable. Because such a thing acquires that we are present in the process of building. It is not just a matter of calculating and executing. Building wisely is being able to switch directions during the process. It is an artistic process, and it demands a human mind and sensitivity from idea to creation.

Lead us to understand how we can create
This year I set up my own little company to experiment with my role as an independent journalist and educator. I invited a group of young people in Denmark to help me set up a local political debate prior to the municipal elections, where many expected few youth would be willing to vote. We invited some young politicians, who seemed all caught up in the old game of "liberals" and "conservatives" versus "socialists" and "social democrats"; speaking in Danish political terms, warning against each other and preaching for votes. But the youth, who were not politically active, wanted to know, what they could do to actually make a difference today in their local societies. Without really getting any answers but the empty slogan: Go vote.

They wanted to know, how they could do a difference, and they wanted to understand how the local political system worked, because nobody had explained it to them. In a modern, well organised, rich society like Denmark this knowledge had not been passed on to the young generation. And this youth is not so different from the youth I have met and enjoyed teaching communications skills and ethics from Eastern Africa, the US and Nepal.

They really are, of course, the greatest resource we have today, because they have not yet conformed into many of the inhumane and dysfunctional systems of our existing societies' institutions and workplaces. They actually ask the basic questions we need to renew our societies. All they need is for us to make an effort to answer them. And to be willing to examine, what it is we are doing, and why it is important to do so?

Only independent minds can secure the free world
Being a youthful mind myself, I asked those questions at the beginning of the year. And I felt a strong urge to reboot, so to speak. To be free and to create something worthwhile. When I was in Nepal to teach and went around in the chaos of the old kingdom now trying to build a still fragile democracy, I felt so lucky to be born in a small and wealthy nation like Denmark with a strong pedagogical culture offering all citizen the possibility of a higher education - and thereby the opportunity to become a free thinker, choosing your own destiny without being fully determined by your family name, your caste, your tribe or your money...

And when I was sitting on a roof top in Nepal conversating with a Finnish Buddhist and an American entrepreneur and looking over the hilltops and rise fields of Eastern Nepal, I found it quite obvious, that I had to change platforms from traditional media to entrepreneurship and education to be able to contribute to the form of enlightenment that has always been my motivation for getting myself into the field of history and journalism:

Because through all the people I have met, and all the stories, I have broadcasted, and all the countries, I have visited, I strongly believe that it is crucial for human beings to cultivate our intellects and the spirit of ourselves and our youth to be able to deal with the challenges of the unknown future in a clever and un-violent way. And that also means to stop confusing ourselves on a daily basis with thousands of images, texts and impressions without being able to tell the difference between the useful and the stressful. We need a mindset where we do not just repeat but actually create.

And although it might sounds like a nice hippie dream, I really believe that this is quite important right now: Because if we do not realise that we need to shift gears to regain our ability to think and work with a long term perspective and with plans rooted in solid ideals - and not focused on money, which are means, not goals - we have a society, where it will be very easy for strong minded nationalists or fundamentalistic religious leaders to gain power just by their ability to gather people around a strong shared story and a set of ethics potentially harmful to others, as we have seen it before in world history.

So to sum up this little new years resolution for the world of mine: I believe that we in 2014 need to be aware of looking through the veils of illusions surrounding us, to understand what is truly valuable to us, our families and societies and to acknowledge that the true creativity we need to make our lives better demands time and focus and love from us. We will then know what we have to let go of and what we will charge for to gain. Because without a dedicated and brave effort motivated by new visions, the openness and peacefulness we've build, can erode faster than we might expect in this galloping unstable world of today.

A postcard with my personal hero John Lennon used as a book mark in the first book I read in 2013 while in Texas: "The White Book" by curator and artist Helene Lundbye Petersen.