Time pours wine and sends off. Travelers wave goodbye. It’s another year in a hurry.
the storm has not stopped this year, and uncertainty is still the greatest certainty. the world changes year by year, and when we prefer to use “uncertainty” to describe the present, we have a trace of worry about nowhere to rely on, an unpredictable fear. What was once thought to be solid may disappear, and fragility has become the most prominent symptom of the times.
the haze of covid-19 epidemic is still enveloping the world. despite the frequent success of vaccine and drug research and development, virus variants and occasional outbreaks are always unprepared. People seem to be used to the collapse of the global village, using health codes as passes, and leaving a string of digital traces wherever they go. However, the imagination of distance has never been limited, but has become stronger. People are eager to open the door and meet the world again. Before that, every country and city should learn to answer how to coexist with the virus in a refined and normalized way.
The global supply chain cut off by the epidemic remains fragile. one cargo ship ran aground on the Suez Canal, which was enough to lead to a century ship jam, causing hundreds of millions of dollars in trade losses per hour; The shortage of one chip presses the pause button of tens of millions of production lines, and the madness of looting and speculation sweeps the manufacturing industry together; The anxiety about the price rise of the most upstream raw materials penetrates the cost table of the enterprise and reaches the kitchen table of each household.
climate change is more serious. from the beginning of the year to the end of the year, extreme weather such as cold wave, Blizzard, high temperature, drought and torrential rain came one after another, covering almost every continent. Everywhere you go, energy prices fluctuate violently. Daily life is interrupted by a large area of water and power cuts. The subway after work will even become a “fatal train” in the flood. Natural disasters have repeatedly sent out enlightening questions, whether our public facilities are tough enough, and whether we are ready to protect the earth that is no longer calm?
China’s solemn commitment to “double carbon” is not only a direct response to environmental problems, but also a driving force for the development mode of transitional economy. we see more and more green cars speeding on the road, patches or sporadic photovoltaic panels flickering in the sun, and rows of wind turbine stations are covered with mountains and vast sea. However, at the same time, soaring coal prices, clearing of backward production capacity and local power rationing have also become cracks in the switching between old and new energy sources. This pain reminds us that although the carbon neutralization schedule is behind us, the path to it needs to be solid step by step, and we must not finish it in one battle.
running hard does not necessarily mean accelerating. under the disturbance of multiple repeated and complex factors, the era of rapid economic growth may be a thing of the past. The short-term growth stall exposed the disadvantages of all walks of life one after another. The leveraged real estate enterprises on the scale braked urgently and stepped into the cold winter, making it difficult to survive while cautiously exploring the bottom. How high online education was once praised by capital, how miserable it is now. A paper of “double reduction” policy seems abrupt, but it has already laid a foreshadowing in the rolled education environment. The release of the “three children” will gradually return the reproductive rights to people, but the fear of negative population growth is still looming. The hot online life in the epidemic did not last. Internet companies saw the peak traffic and urgently needed to find the next space. However, while new formats such as short video and live broadcasting were rapidly becoming popular, there were also hidden worries. The rapid gathering of head traffic attracted regulatory norms step by step. Closely related to it, the capital market naturally has ups and downs. The rotation of market style this year makes investors elusive, and it is difficult to find opportunities in many uncertainties.
similarly, the development of technology does not deserve to bring progress. as an extension of human beings, media can create connections, but today’s social media environment is worth asking again and again. While the pop trends one after another seem lively, they actually hide a set of standardized life models and value paradigms, which are dispelling pluralism and imagination; The information cocoon room makes people trapped in their own ideological comfort circle. Once they encounter public discussion, there will be a tearing of views. Rational discussion has become a luxury, fragmented and even violent expression everywhere. We were surprised to find that the Internet is not flat. It may be continuous hills, resulting in the illusion of “not knowing the true face of Lushan”, or it may be a time black hole, embezzling the color and taste of offline life.
mobile Internet has reshaped the world in just a few years, and new technological forms are also changing eagerly. smart cars have long been expected to replace mobile phones as the next traffic entrance, while AR / VR, 5g communication and artificial intelligence technologies are brewing to create a universe. The concept of “meta universe” will burn unexpectedly in 2021, which will expand the dimension of human survival. However, there are still a lot of homework to do before stepping into the meta universe, including not only the improvement of science and technology and the improvement of ethics and regulations, but also the reflection on the relationship between man and the world and the significance of self-existence.
countless threads can not describe our 2021. the world is becoming more and more complex, and the complexity of the system leads to vulnerability. Everyone can’t be alone in it. Conversely, to resist fragility, we should start from the system and rebuild the world order in fracture and chaos. Anti epidemic and carbon reduction have become the greatest common divisor of global interests. We need to work harder, care about the fair distribution of vaccines and drugs in the world, especially in underdeveloped areas, cooperate to participate in the repair and reconstruction of the international supply chain, and uphold the responsibility of the host and the humility of the guests to protect this beautiful planet.
although the era full of uncertainty is difficult to predict, it can be dealt with. the source of uncertainty is often the seemingly grand and difficult to grasp external conditions, while the solid and immortal is the internal characteristic of human nature towards goodness. As long as we think along this main line, we will not miss the trend of history if we think about what kind of society we need, what kind of children we educate, how to distribute wealth, how to give full play to science and technology, and what kind of life we can call good.
the moment the calendar turns over does not cut off any continuity. looking forward, it is still difficult for us to determine whether the epidemic will end in 2022, whether it will end or not, and how it will end. We don’t know how many sighs and joys we will have in the coming days.
But what we can be sure of is that hope does not appear in a auspicious way, but when we become more dexterous and tenacious, we suddenly find that it is enough to deal with this uncertain and fragile world.
Embrace 2022, she’s coming!
(E company)
