The End of Another Year

Again with the End of things. Naturally, this is a time to stop and reflect on the changes that occurred this year as well as praise the stability of those things which stood for another year. It has been a year of arrivals and departures. Those that have left us make us grateful for those that are still with us.

This was suppose to be a year of significant change, and for the most part things went on as they always have. One of the biggest things that happened for Americans is that we have a new man in the White House, driving the country to the tune of compromise. Yes We Can Compromise on everything. That is the most ironic aspect of the Obama administration in comparison to the former Bush administration: The Bush administration was so uncompromising, so unbelievably stubborn to perform "his way," that the new administration has been criticized for being TOO compromising. People are upset because they aren't getting the kind of change they were hoping for--like a new American Revolution--except no one was willing to sacrifice their butter for guns, and as a result they are unhappy with the actions of the president. But that is the nature of high-population political offices like Federal Government: Only a little over half of the people actually wanted to see the winner in office. At least I haven't been seeing any spoil-sport John McCain '08 bumper stickers. It also seems like those who were still sporting their Kerry/Adams '04 stickers finally took the remnants of that fiasco down.

And that's kind of my point about the News Years: people invest themselves in these large events in which one person doesn't really make a difference, and fight passionately for what they believe in for exactly the duration of the large event. When that ends, they find something else. The event itself is not actually of any importance, but the way it makes a person feel about their involvement is what is significant. The end of a year has no inherent significance, except for what we choose to attach to it. I'm sure there are things that really were special that we can't recall at moments of epoch shift that we should keep in mind, but because our attention is cluttered with things that don't really matter--we just thing they do--we carry those things in our hearts for way to long. We're just waiting for the next set of distraction to come along and remind us that what we were hung up on is really not important to us, we just have nothing better to cling to.

But it was a good year. I made it through without any serious mental or emotional stalls. And I learned a valuable thing about human rationality: it is an illusion. Putting faith in Human Reason is just as dangerous is placing one's faith in any religion, because it is not the principles of the ideology that have the power, it is the effect those principles have when put into practice by an irrational human being who naturally can't follow them through to their logical conclusion. Why not? Because we are not governed by Reason. We are govern by the push and pull of emotion against the artifice of logic. As hard as we try to solve problems logically, it is only wishful thinking that the rest of the world will draw the same conclusion let alone act upon it. Hopefully by 2011 I will know what to do with this information, but just acknowledging its existence feels like an achievement.

So here's to healing wounds, faithful friends, and more drugs than time allows for. Happy New Year to all, except those who won't celebrate the new year for a couple more months. Let us enjoy the company of our loved ones, and forget our troubles until we show up for work the next morning.