A First Night ice sculpture in Boston
From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com
On and about New Year’s Day we talk about time more than usual – past, present and future. But what is the present since we’re always moving through time?
So what have we learned, or relearned, in this crummy year? Well, on the list might be:
That there are far too many variables in heaven and earth to confidently make predictions about big stuff. You can only try to mitigate your vulnerability to an infinite number of risks. And most of us have big failures of imagination -- e.g., the possibility that a bunch of terrorists could fly airlines into skyscrapers and that we’d have the biggest pandemic since 1918 -- and so we don’t adequately prepare for many disasters that are inevitable but whose timing can’t be known.
(I’m waiting for a really big earthquake hereabouts.)
That in-person communication is almost always better than via a screen.
That many of us have learned to appreciate more than we had certain small pleasures that we had too often ignored before, such as walking outside on a mild, sunny morning.
That, generally, sitting in restaurants with your friends is better than getting takeout.
That global warming and its effects are moving along at a faster pace than expected.
That our ability to pollute the earth grows ever wider – consider that microplastics have been found in the placentas of babies, with unknown health risks – and that thrown-away face masks are making a mess on land and in the water.
That reading a book – especially a good, solid hardcover one -- can be much more satisfying than watching TV.
That investing in dry-cleaning stores is unwise.
That having lots of locally based shops and eateries within walking distance of where you live is a gift and that it’s worth supporting them as much as possible.
That sidewalks should be widened so that more of our social and commercial life can take place outdoors.
That America needs more trades people – plumbers, electricians, roofers, carpenters, etc. – and the apprentice programs and vocational schools to train them -- than it needs more college graduates. Indeed, bring back “shop’’ classes in the public schools. Our COVID house arrests have reminded millions of how many things need fixing in our homes and how few people are available to fix them.
That, as we’ve seen in who shows up on TV as victims in the COVID crisis, there are far too many single-family households, led only by the mother. America needs a revival of marriage and of holding fathers economically and otherwise responsible for the children they help create.
That so many Americans own big expensive cars, especially SUVs -- even poor people lining up in their cars for food pantry stuff.
That tens of millions of Americans will devoutly follow a sociopathic/psychotic demagogue, whatever the easily ascertainable extent of his lies and viciousness, suggests that the future of the American democratic experiment may be in deep peril.
That science’s ability to save us is vast (consider the super-fast invention of COVID-19 vaccines!) even as science applied by evil people can threaten us.
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Let’s hope for a grand reopening by June, anti-vaxxers permitting.
And maybe the best New Year’s resolution is to decide to tolerate who we have become and to look at the roads that brought us here more clinically than emotionally.
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I have a pile of old magazines – Life, Look, etc. -- from the ‘50s and ‘60s that I like to browse from time to time. It’s a bit of an education in cultural change, both the ads – lots of them are for cigarettes and gasoline and now bizarre- looking health products – and the often stilted language of the articles.
Too bad that most print magazines have died. People 50 years from now would enjoy seeing in a physical format what Americans in 2020 were like.
