"What's Going On?"

As the new year begins, we ponder what lies ahead. Love, anger, frustration, fear, loathing, success, failure, and more. These moments will be exciting, confusing, and sometimes difficult. Although we may not fully understand them, these experiences will shape us and transform us into more than we are today.

As we enter 2025, there is a feeling of darkness. It's disheartening to realize that our neighbors and some we consider friends have chosen someone to be president who lacks the moral, emotional, social, and spiritual qualities needed to represent anything beyond personal interests. This leaves us with a sense of uncertainty that we have not had before. Typically elections end and we all just keep moving forward. This feels different.

Dealing with uncertainty can be challenging for many people. We don’t have all the answers, and we can often be mistaken about what we believe to be true. However, we all possess an intrinsic feeling of whether something is right or wrong—like a sense of "yes, that resonates" or "oh no, that's not right; we need to fix that." Yet, despite recognizing these feelings, we often choose not to change; we simply shrug it off and carry on.

What makes us do the things we do? We can't seem to get better. We get more technology, more stuff, more processed food than we can eat, more movies than we can watch, and more clothes than we can wear, yet the thing we need more of, love, seems to be the thing that continues to diminish. What's going on?

As we welcome the new year, it begins with a literal bang: a car crashes into a crowd of people on the streets of New Orleans. News stations are all over the story, seemingly relishing the dramatic incident. It provides them with plenty to discuss for the next few hours until the next bang. What is going on?

We pretend to care. Thoughts and prayers are shared by politicians, mayors, and chiefs. They express outrage and then it's over. Games are delayed, but not for long. We need the distraction. Lives are changed forever, but we forget their names. What's Going On?