Today was a good first day of the year.

It started with fireworks with the family and the penultimate episode of Stranger Things. The finale wasn’t coming out until 2 a.m., but none of us thought we’d be able to last that long. So instead, we agreed to wake up at 10 a.m. and watch the finale then.The next morning, it was a little difficult to wake up, so it ended up being 15 minutes after 10 when we finally rounded up the older kids to watch the final episode.

Marilyn had expressed she wasn’t interested in watching it—being only 9 years old, and this season being a bit extra on the violence and gore. Mostly violence.

It’s hard to believe that the very first episodes started 10 years ago, but they wrapped the stories nicely. Not perfect, but acceptable. It’s been running a while and you can tell that people just wanted to give everyone a good ending.I remember it was never a show where people died, and it was only in the recent seasons where they actually killed off people—let alone key characters. So I guess this was them coming back to the original ways of feel-good shows and people not dying, but maybe almost doing so.

After the finale, I decided to pick up a recently acquired book and start reading it. I’m making a decision to actively try not to consume social media—because what has that become now?

With the introduction of AI, there’s just so much content out there that isn’t even authentic, and that strays from the original purpose of my signing up to these services in the first place.I, being halfway around the world from my own family and the friends that I know, wanted a platform where I could at least tune in to what my friends back home are doing, what’s new in their lives.Lately, I’ve noticed an increase in sponsored posts and, worse, just AI-generated slop. It’s turned me off to even going into these apps. A lot of the content being peddled is polarizing stuff, with the goal of getting people riled up and engaging—whether pro or con to the published content.

This has probably been the primary reason I don’t even choose to open the social media apps anymore. I know it’s just going to be a stream of people spewing out statements of hate against someone else’s views.

Shouldn’t people just be allowed to express what they believe? That’s the only way the voice of the populace gets heard. When more people sing the same song, then you know—this is the voice of most.

Each person has a right to be heard. Each person should have the liberty to be heard—not shamed because their views aren’t the same views of the educated. The government should serve the problems of the majority first.

I guess the problem is more about finding out what the true problems of the majority are, unbiased by bribes and corruption. But we really have to start with making people feel comfortable about expressing their views without being shamed.

I can never understand the people who openly insult those who have different views from them, declaring their intellectual superiority and assuming the others’ stupidity.

“I know that I know nothing.” — Socrates

I would never assume I know better than anyone, not even the poorest of the poor. Because what are my opinions based on but my own sheltered view of reality?

How selfish would it be for me to think that my views are correct and that everyone else’s are wrong—because I did my research on the internet, and I got this feeling of what is morally correct? That’s what we were taught. This is what is correct.

But is life really that black and white? Is that something one person can determine based on the impressions they get from their immediate experiences, the media, and the content they consume from the internet?

I feel I need to detach myself from the hysteria—because that’s what it’s beginning to feel like.

We are indeed all entitled to our own opinions. And we best remember that everyone else is too—regardless of their stature in life.

We need to learn to respect that. Respect that other people have opinions that may differ from ours, and use these differences to work together. To calibrate. To find out what is best for the greater good at this point in time.

We may have our ideals, but maybe we need to make way for the ideals of the people who are less fortunate than us to be realized before ours are—in order for us all to grow as a community and build a better society where everyone is heard, and everyone is taken care of.