OPTIMISM FOR 2026

I woke up quite early yesterday. I tend to wake up quite early these days. It is a sign of age. I plugged in the iPhone to charge for the day and read a couple of news items on the BBC, the Guardian and a couple of subtitled pieces on YouTube. Nothing brought any kind of solace but rather made me want top scream at the top of my voice, the internal rage became so intense. I did not do so. I had decided that I would no longer indulge in venting about politics, either local or foreign. The image of Edvard Munch “The Scream” came to mind and I knew exactly what the artist intended.

Munch had begun the painting in 1893 some time around the month of May when there was a quick clay slide in Norway’s Verdal Municipality which destroyed 1054 farms and killed 116 people. Not that that was the only catastrophic event in the world of the 1890’s. The 1893 Panic was an economic depression in the United States which deeply affected every sector of the economy and produced various political upheavals. 

The noted Norwegian writer Arne Garborg is quoted as saying:

"It is said that with money you can have everything, but you cannot. You can buy food, but not appetite; medicine but not health; knowledge but not wisdom; glitter, but not beauty; fun, but not joy; acquaintances, but not friends; servants, but not faithfulness; leisure, but not peace. You can have the husk of everything for money, but not the kernel.”

I am sure there were many incidents around the glob that prompted Munch to contemplate the work, of which he had painted some 4 versions; however, Munch himself wrote: 

I was walking along the Road with two Friends. The Sun was setting. The Sky turned / blood red and I felt a wave of Sadness. I stood still tired to Death, above / the blue-black Fjord and City blood and Flaming Tongues hovered. My Friends walked on. I / remained behind shaking with Angst. I felt the great Scream in Nature.

Just what is this Great Scream of Nature? I believe there is no doubt that the stress caused by this current ambience is clearly something we all feel at various times. It is not fear but a very significant anger that causes this internal shriek. Indeed, it is something that comes with almost every generation. Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, from 1954/5 is an instance in point:


I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by 
madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
looking for an angry fix,
angel-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly 
connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat 
up smoking in the supernatural darkness of 
cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities 
contemplating jazz, 
who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and 
saw Mohammedan angels staggering on 
tenement roofs illuminated, 
who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes 
hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy 
among the scholars of war, 
who were expelled from the academies for crazy &
publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull, 
who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, 
burning their money in wastebaskets and listening 
to the Terror through the wall,
………etc…….(it goes on a bit)

That howl becomes even more resounding because it has been going on for so long, as if the lessons of our past are of naught. Why does such unequivocal knowledge fail to connect and fall away to nothingness? 

However, when I ask my desktop Mac “Causes for optimism in 2026” I get the following:

 

It speaks of 64 Global Developments Heralding a Flourishing Future, including
1- Global mental health support system
2- Wellbeing beats GDP in Policy
3- Historic Breakthroughs in Global Health (Malaria Vaccine)
4- Polio on the brink of extinction
5- Childhood malnutrition at all-time lows
6- Smoking and tobacco use plummet
7- Global COVID solidarity and resilience
8- Women’s leadership reaches new heights
9-  Marriage equality becomes a global norm
10- Death penalty becoming obsolete
Etc…

These are the first ten in the list. You will note topics 8, 9 and 10 are very much open to question. I suggest you go to the website for further information on remaining optimistic:
https://worldhappiness.foundation/blog/community/a-world-of-happytalist-progress-64-reasons-for-optimism-in-2026/

You may find some of the suggestions a bit odd. At 21 we have “Drones delivering hope and health” I presume the Ukrainians and others in the Middle East may need to rethink hope and health. Nonetheless we must maintain some sense of hope and stay healthy. What else can we do?
Good luck with that.