Published June 4, 2010

I have been wondering about our little community here in Iceland lately. I have been thinking about an aspect of it that seems to be growing and permeating our society like some sorta evil mushroom from a horror movie (or that Óttar M. Norðfjörð book that I can’t remember what was called but was a pretty good read nonetheless).
I am talking about an anger or rage that seems blind; a distrust and suspicion that renders us unable to see some of the beauty and magic that is still out there.
I feel so much of our energy these days is going towards tearing down, rather than building up. Into being destructive as opposed to constructive. We might have lost our faith in a lot of things over the last few years, and with good reason some might say. We have been cheated and mistreated – our faith and trust have been raped and robbed by a marauding gang of sociopaths.
But that does not necessarily entail that everyone out there is a marauding sociopath rapist; that everyone is out to get us. Or at least I hope not.
I think it is high time we start focusing our energy on other things than demolishing our rotted structures. At some point we will need to rebuild. I know that we are still entangled in a wholly corrupt and vile system that is in sore need of change and rectification, but I hope there are other ways of doing it than those we have been exploring for the last two years.
There is a lack of good and beautiful and positive and constructive. There are fights and anger and internet and detest and oozing, festering sores. And folks that love poking at them to see the pus spew forth.
We might have needed this at some point, but I fear we’ve had our fill.
Here at the Grapevine we try our best to service our community by being alert and displaying a healthy distrust. Throughout our seven year history we have many, many times pointed out wrongs that should be righted, underlined things that are negative and wrong and even tried to figure out how they might be improved. We will continue to do so.
I have been trying to make sense of this. How may we as a society continue to rid ourselves of our decaying and corrupt structures without losing sight of all the awesomeness that still prevails?
I think the key might be to distinguish between healthy and sane scepticism, and rabid finger-pointing lynchmobbery. I think that might be useful for us all.
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I was happy when Reykjavík mayor-to-be (if all goes well) Jón Gnarr echoed similar sentiments when I interviewed him on our night before press (read the results on page eight). Maybe him and The Best Party are ushering in a new era? That might be wishful thinking, but I sure do hope so.
I hope we can soon start focusing on creating beautiful things, and building solid structures.
That would be cool.