#Blogvent Day 4 : Everything everywhere all during the span of a week

We're living in interesting times, and maybe that's not such a bad thing

Today, I woke up (around noon, Philippine time) to the news of Syrians dancing in the streets and toppling statues. Apparently Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government just collapsed and the guy has fled the country. Prisoners who apparently have been unjustly detained, some for years, are being released. Honestly, I know very little about the Syrian situation, but all of these developments are apparently great.

This news is just another in a series of wild things that have been happening around the world. Only a few days ago, late at night on December 3, South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol declared Martial Law. Parliament hurriedly forces him to undeclare it. People protested in the streets, facing down the military. As of this writing, apparently Yoon just narrowly escaped being impeached.

In the U.S., the CEO of insurance company UnitedHealthcare was fatally shot in Manhattan outside his hotel (December 4) and people are reacting with laughing emojis and by writing songs about how not sad they are about his death. Which, you know, fair.

Look, this is not a news blog, but I’m putting all these here because you need to understand how wild things have been this week. I can’t even think of anything to blog about that has to do with what’s going on with me. Because all I’ve been doing was watch in amazement as events unfolded.

It’s kind of great how people are moving through these events not just with determination and fire, but with humor. I particularly like the protest sign above when Koreans were protesting the recently declared Martial Law: “Association of Romance Fantasy Writers Who Ran Out To Protest Instead Of Finishing Their Manuscripts”.

All these events got me thinking about the Chinese curse “May you live in interesting times”. Because these are interesting times, but sometimes what is interesting, while still troubling, isn’t necessarily bad. Because sometimes what we need is something interesting to spark a revolution. And sometimes, a revolution is just what we need.

This post was previously published on my blog as part of my Blogvent2024 series.