This post was last Updated on July 23, 2020

Wow.

Another year has passed.

Because we’re not used to spending Christmas and New Year’s Eve around the equator, we could easily forget that it’s this period of the year. It also doesn’t feel the same. We are thousands of kilometers away from our friends and family and we’re not about to freeze to death the minute we walk out of the door. It’s a strange feeling…

But then again, it has been a strange year too.

Next to unknown forces from a deep underground treatening us with terrorist attacks , creating a massive scare among the people, now it also seems like the world powers are standing against each other more than ever.

Never before have we heard the word “separation” so many times than in 2017. We want to separate from parts of our country, from other countries, from other religons, from the guy who sits next to us at work and from our partner. Where the hell does this come from? Humans are not ment to be alone, we used to live in a cave but we did it together.

Do what makes you feel better

A lot of this hate comes from jealousy, instead of appreciating what we have, we want the things we don’t have. Especially when someone we know already has it. Is it human nature to want envy our neighbours?

Of course, if everyone had just been happy with picking berries and hunting deer a couple of thousands of years ago, we wouldn’t be who we are right now. But really, how many people pre-ordered the iPhone X without even knowing what it does, but knowing that the first edition is always the bad one (when it comes to iPhones, the secondary S-series is always much better). People pay $999 at a minimum to get something they don’t know what it’ll do. Or how it will make our lives better.

In the end we are all egoists, and that’s not really such a bad thing. We can’t all be Mother Theresa or the Pope, we think about ourselves and we choose the things that will improve our life and the life of our loved ones. The problem is that we suck at determining what’ll make our life better. Way too often we aim for momentary highs, because yeah baby, we have the iPhone X (although we don’t actually have it yet) which nobody else has (who actually also preordered it). We are just not good at long term thinking. The best example is the difference between going to the grocery store with an empty stomagh or with a full one.

So for 2018, we wish for you to see the difference. The difference between a short high and long term satisfaction.

Keep connecting

We wonder how separation has become something we’re longing for. It always seemed to have a bad undertone, something that ended up with tears, regrets and lonely nights on the couch thinking “what have we done?”. And yet it became a popular topic in 2017.

What happened with “give people a chance”? With “give peace a chance”? Do we really need John Lennon to remind us that others aren’t that bad?

During our trip around the world, we’ve met so many people from different origins, with different beliefs and backgrounds. Certainly not all of them think the same as us or share the same values (especially when it comes to nudism), but that doesn’t necessarily make them bad. One of the best things of humanity is that we are all different, but we need to be able to accept the differences of others.

By excluding people from our lives purely based on colour, sex, age, religion or whatever superficial reason, we are narrowing our world so much that in the end we will end up alone. Why can’t we just appreciate the fact that there are others, with other ideas, because they can enrich our world way more than one could ever imagine.

For 2018 we wish that you will network beyond LinkedIn, without considering if a connection will eventually be beneficial for yourself. Just meet new people, share thoughts, ideas and beers. And if you happen to not like them after all, too bad, but you’ll know that it’s because you just don’t connect and not about what they look like or believe.

Go clothing optional

Nudies like to tell the world that nudism looks beyond all those superficial things, we don’t care about age, shape or colour, everyone is the same. As long as they are naked. This is the only prerequisite, but for many it is a huge step. We often don’t remember that one day we had to take that step ourselves and that it wasn’t that easy either. And we tend to forget that there are others out there with huge body issues, religious backgrounds or other constraints, who just can’t take that first step just like that.

We should not forget that the first time being naked in front of a bunch of strangers is an intimidating thing. So (as you probably already know) we are promotors of making that step a bit easier by promoting clothing optional.

We have tackled this subject in the past and received a huge load of (both positive and negative) comments, so let us address a couple of things. We don’t want to turn naturist places into clothing optional places. Certainly not! Some people only feel confident being naked among other nudies and that’s perfectly fine.

Our dream is a clothing optional world, where there are separate areas for nudists and seperate areas for textiles, but where the norm is the choice. Choose whatever you want to wear and when you don’t want to wear anything, it should be a normal thing.

We know that this is nothing but a dream, but we like to dream big. And this dream will have to start from us, from the nudies.

Although we’ve asked you to be happy with what you have, we don’t want you to lose your dreams, as long as you think they will benefit the world and everyone in it. So let’s make the world clothing optional, one step at a time!

Have a great nude 2018!!