Closing Out the Year

In two days it will be January 1st of a New Decade. Yes, the capitals are deliberate. I think back on the Y2K craziness and the predictions of doom and gloom and think although apocalypse was not as immediate or complete as the doomsayers had imagine, in this decade passing, apocalypse certainly did come. We saw the twin towers fall, the economy collapse, two wars sap the soul of our nation and further empty it's coffers, plague emerge in the form of Sars, avian and H1N1 viruses and the disasters that were the Pacific Tsunami and Katrina, cast into sharp relief our impotence (and in the case of Katrina, incompetence) when faced with the forces unleashed by nature. We have new words in our vocabularies, and new media - facebook anyone? We interact more immediately, more intimately, and yet, we are disconnected from each other in profound and unsettling ways. Our reality has become entertainment, and our entertainment has become "reality". There have been personal victories and personal tradgedies for everyone I know in the decade, and the only consistent thing about them is that they are universal.