202-BLAH

So, another year has come and gone and I have to say—so what?

Is it my age?  Has that limited my expectations for a new year?

I used to be so excited with the new year’s arrival.  I never made any New Year’s resolutions because I never had any intention of keeping any.  Besides, wasn’t I perfect just the way I was?  But just writing the new year on a check for the first time, I’d think to myself—wow, yet another year.  How great is that?  No more.

My ennui at the turning of a calendar page to a whole new calendar year wasn’t always the case.  I can remember in the 1950’s, yes, way back then, when our history teacher, who was fired the next year, gave us a lesson on demographics that included how soon we were likely to die, what was the statistical average.  I said to myself, if only I can make it to 2000, how wonderful that would be, to see another century.  Then I wondered, what would happen to companies like 20th Century Fox.  Okay, call me a bit strange, but that’s the kind of child I was, limited concerns, but always looking forward because I knew it had to be better than the past.

No more.  The past is the future.  We might be moving laterally, I don’t think we’re moving forward.  The woes of the world continue to haunt us, and we don’t seem to have the capacity to move toward the light of a better world.  Everywhere there are those making the effort.  It’s just that the waves of human misery are pushing us back to shore when we should be paddling into calmer waters.

I ask several questions that I’m sure someone can answer—logically.  Why is there war in Ukraine?  (Note:  I’m not asking why we are suddenly changing the pronunciation of Kiev and what happens to chicken Kiev?). As the winter descends, I worry.  There are people in Ukraine, way too many people living without heat and light.  I freak out if the electricity is off for more than ten minutes.  How do they stand it?  And for what reason are they in that situation in the first place?  So many deaths because one man wakes up one day and decides, yeah, I want Ukraine.

Why are people still building houses along the Carolina shores when the seas are rising?  Can’t they walk a mile from a safe inland location?  HGTV, you have a lot to answer for when you promote people and these purchases. Let sanity reign along our shores as our shores move ever inland.

Why are people allowed to carry guns?  Freely?  Open carry?  In case no one has noticed, guns kill people.  People with guns kill people.  If you have a gun, it’s likely that you might at some point use it.  Or maybe your child will pick it up and shoot someone, maybe even you.  How do you balance your freedom to carry a gun as opposed to my freedom not to be killed by your gun in some wanton attack over a parking space or a slow order at a fast food establishment?  Other countries seem to survive and thrive without gunslingers.  Why can’t we?

Where has civility gone, i.e., why do we hate one another?  What happened to out of many one.  E Pluribus Unum for the old-fashioned among us.  We’ve always had our disagreements about—well, everything.  Disparage an opinion, don’t disparage the person holding it.  Debate, don’t delete the opposition from the human race.

Speaking of which, why do people in this country not have enough to eat and why aren’t children loved and nourished—by all of us?  And if we need more workers, why not let people in who want to work and make a better life for themselves and their families and, consequently, us.   There should be no “other” in America.  We should all remember the dream for which our antecedents came here.

I want to be excited about the new year.  I want a new beginning.  I want to see a brighter future before I see no future at all.  Where is our Theseus to slay the Minotaur of our own making?  Answers, please.