Every year I choose a symbol which would guide me through the new year.
Year 2017 was the year of the Eagle.
It means to soar high enough to have top view, perspective of my condition, the one of my family, and the one of my communities.
The year 2018 was my year of the Ant.
From the macro perspective to the micro one on the ground, I focused on building a resilient community with organization and discipline where everyone finds a place.
My symbol for 2019 was the Hippopotamus.
The Hippo is a very cool animal but an endangered species in Africa. As symbol the Hippo is a very territorial animal, with powerful effective stealth defense mindset. If need to be, the Hippo charges only to win.
For 2020, I’ve chosen the parasite toxoplasma as symbol.
Toxo is a unicellular parasite with a level of intelligence superior to most humans when it come to organizing to get result. For example, toxo reproduces only in the gut of cats. To get into the stomach of cats, toxo would infect mice, migrate to their brain, then alter their brain chemistry removing mice fear of cat, even making mice to be attracted to cats urine and feces. The lack of fear of cats make infected mice physicality attracted to cat which would then easily prey them. Toxo, one inside the cat gut reproduces and exits through it feces and infect new mice.
It’s believed that 40% of humans are infected by toxo. 70% in developing countries.
A boy infected by toxoplasma is likely to die in car accident, in a reckless way, or suffer from sexually transmitted diseases.
An army with the most soldiers infected by toxoplasma would display extraordinary act of courage.
In a few days, I’d choose a symbol for 2021. I want a year of blooming and vanity!
What symbol should I draw on ?
I’ve been choosing a symbol every year for over a decade now.
The first year was the year of the Fly.
This choice stemmed from a scientific experiment where they put a few flies in a transparent bottle, and a few bees in a transparent bottle, in a dark room, then they reversed the bottles turning the bottom to the light, and the exit onto the dark room.
Both the flies and the bees want to exit the bottle and reach light, but to exit they have to go back to the darkness to find the bottle mouth.
At the end of the experiment, most flies found the bottle mouth and exited, but all bees died in the bottles.
Why did all the bees died and most flies escaped.
Flies would swerve, fly into all directions, erratically, going right left, North, South, and randomly would find the bottle mouth and voilà.
Bees instead are very rational animals. They see light at the bottom of the bottle and they see no logic, no reason, to fly backward or waste time going around.
I chose flies as symbol that very first year because I felt stuck in my life and needed an exit but I didn’t know where the exit was.
Like the flies in the experiment I swerved, leveraged serendipity and randomness of luck for my salvation.
It was an amazing year of self search and discovery. To sprout and produce, the grain should go back to the dirty, black and wet soil.
Then the second year, my chosen symbol was the bee, which means once I’ve found my path, I needed to act like a bee, which means been focused, unidirectional, disciplined, undistracted by equally appealing causes I may encounter.
My third year was the year of the spider, the fourth the year of the peacock, etc.
Picking a symbol to guide my upcoming years has brought very much good experience in my life.