January 2026, Anyway…
I believe 2026 is bound to be a year for the eccentrics. With all the economic uncertainty, the spread of artificial intelligence, changes to culture, and hectic geopolitics, we are likely to find that many of the ways of operating in the past are simply not viable anymore or have become obsolete. Once more, we are living through turbulent days. This is, perhaps, not the most tumultuous period humanity has encountered, nor even within the top five most earth shaking eras in the last two hundred years. It is, however, the continued curse of “interesting times”.
In such periods the societies that allow for both experimentation and discernment are the ones that come out better. Without the freedom for the individual to test out new ways of associating, growing, learning, and working, a people will be stuck in a mire of outdated and inefficient options until things fall apart entirely or they become late adopters to a new viable way of living that arises. Conversely, it is harmful for a society to be so zealously liberal in accepting alternative ways of living that it can not look honestly at the results of each new experiment. The majority of what will be tried will be abject failure. Sometimes we are simply wrong and the proof ends up in the pudding. This is to be expected, embraced even. But we must be able to identify and point out those failures without concern of offending. To label unhealthy or non-prosperous outcomes as such is not a matter of hate, but care. To paraphrase Emerson, let us not believe ourselves persecuted whenever we are simply contradicted.
We must also be careful not to “throw the baby out with the bathwater” as it were. Just because something is new does not make it better. Not every website and application needs machine learning algorithms and large language models. Not every appliance needs a touchscreen and internet access. Reading books and face to face learning is still superior to watching videos online in terms of education. Old trends become new again, and the old ways are sometimes still be the best ways. But this is the domain of the eccentric as well; picking up and reviving old forgotten ways to see how they play in the light of a new day. No doubt, a Renaissance is a matter of rediscovery and rebirth; such is in the name.
Yes, 2026 will be a year for the eccentrics. That can include you as well. Happy new year; I hope we all find fertile opportunity amid the disruption and change.
