Project Vision 21

We sit in front of a screen (it doesn’t matter which one) to watch something and immediately we say there is nothing to watch, even after browsing dozens of channels, or searching hundreds of options. And if we watch something, even if it is new, we already know what is going to happen because it is the same plot we have seen before in another movie or in another series.

So, we decide to watch the news or search for it online and we found ourselves in a similar situation: the names and places change, but the stories are the same: a war here, a massacre there, a corruption scandal over there. And, as always, someone who is only famous for being famous says nothing that makes no sense, but it is repeated again and again. 

Perhaps to escape this situation, many people go to churches or religious centers to listen to sermons and preaching. And they soon discover that week after week the exact same sermon is repeated, over and over again, without progress and without delving into the subject. Always the same, as if it were something new, but it is not. What has already been said is repeated without acknowledging that it has already been said.

These and many other similar situations are clear examples that our society (that is, ourselves) is frozen, both figuratively and in reality. We have entered a cycle of continuous repetition of the same thing to the point that neither entertainment entertains us, nor does the news inform us, nor preaching transform us. 

“Everything is the same, nothing is better”, said the tango Cambalache wisely in reference to the 20th century. And in the 21st century, that repetition of “Everything is the same, nothing is better” has become technologized and globalized within the framework of the social media, where, despite billions of people participating, you just see the same thing over and over and over again.

Our thoughts, our ideas, our hearts, our souls, our minds, and our spirits are frozen, immobile, unable to allow life to flow again. And we call that awful situation "normality" and "reality."

Two and a half millennia ago, Heraclitus taught that life was (is) a river that “cannot be entered twice”, thus underlining not only the fluidity of life, but the fact we can only experience life living it.

If that river of life flows and an ice cube is deposited in it, the ice becomes water, and the river continues to flow. But if an immense amount of ice reaches the river (for example, a heavy snowfall in winter), the water in the river turns to ice and the river stops flowing. That is what happens to us.

But who froze us? Who put us in a freezer and keeps us there, even if they have to pay the electricity bill? I don't know, but according to Dante in his Divine Comedy, the very center of hell, where Satan himself can be found, is frozen.