CWhat can you imagine about us and what awaits us at the end of December, between Christmas decorations that already seem ancient and the desire for some new illusion? We can start from Census reportwhich photographs every outgoing year with picturesque language.
Today it tells of a wild age, iron and fire, predators and prey, with the world turned upside down between the winds of war and the arms race. The Italian response is in the very delicate exercise of “staying in the present”. A fragile, frayed, mended, but real present.
We are there: after having digested zero growth, remodulated expectations and aspirations, we survive by trusting in our providential art of making do. We close our eyes and choose to abandon ourselves to brief moments of happiness and small daily pleasures, which demonstrate our positive approach to life. Despite it all.
Danda Santini, director of “iO Donna” (photo by Carlo Furgeri Gilbert).
We spend more but consume less, we abandon ourselves to experiences, including cultural ones (but few books…), we make love often, without taboos, with joy and variety. The art of adapting isn’t revolutionary, but it works.
You can make a profession of scientific optimism like the American journalist Nicholas Kristof that from the columns of New York Timess every January stubbornly tells why the last year was the best ever in the history of humanity. Data in hand: infant mortality continues to fall as does extreme poverty, illiteracy is disappearing, medicine is galloping, new drugs and vaccines will keep us healthy for longer, the search for clean and cheap energy is unstoppable. The world seems increasingly in chaos, but progress continues, year after year.
Happy 2026 (illustration by Cinzia Zenocchini).
You can go even further by wearing the writer’s futuristic glasses Ian McEwanwhich in his latest book What we can know (Einaudi) imagines himself in 2119 as a literary scholar of the first century of the new millennium, ours. Which in his eyes as a citizen of a harsh era, emerging from dark catastrophes, appears like a crowded planet, pressured by nationalism and religious fanaticism, tactical wars, preventive and nuclear attacks, military and environmental crises, dominated by greedy idiots, survivalist ideas and decisions made by AI.
“What we can know” by Ian McEwan (Einaudi).
Under attack from a vertigo of technological changes, miscalculations and global blindness, we are falling apart. Humanity does not become completely extinct but survives, between stagnation and nostalgia for our years which now seem catastrophic to us, but in comparison become a golden age, still rich in animals, plants, flowers, butterflies, exquisite tastes, excellent foods, wonderful living conditions, vital debates. Let’s take advantage of it now.
Or, you can set your eyes like stars and read into the future with ours Horoscope 2026. Some raise their eyebrows but, when anxiety and irrationalism make their way, antidotes are always welcome. Psychologist James Hillman says it, after years of investigation into the psyche: everything is therapy. Read, see, live. After all, who else would take the risk of making predictions today for tomorrow, if not the stars? Congratulations!
THE HOROSCOPE 2026