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samir, a very hard worker

Ten years ago, I’d wish people a happy new year or birthday or whatever, and say something like, “I hope you have an exciting year!”

Now I say, “I hope this year is relaxing and free of surprises.”

I don’t know if it’s me that’s changed, or the world.

Probably both.

@samir it's struck me this year that lots of old Christmas songs have "peace on earth" or similar in them. I used to feel like they were just platitudes, but it's hitting harder this year for me.

I wonder if lots of these songs were written around/between world wars 1 and 2, or during the cold war, when things felt more shaky. In the West we've had a good long period of peace since then, which more recently feels shaky again.

@sarajw Agreed, we finally got some peace in at least some parts of the world, and we got complacent. Now there’s so much talk about how Wars Are Good, Actually because we haven’t had one in (checks notes) a generation and a half.

We humans are pretty thick, aren’t we?

@samir honestly I'm amazed all these barely sentient meat sacks (I include myself in this) manage to get along at all most of the time.

But agreed, complacency has lead to "never again" becoming an empty sentiment.

@sarajw I really hope we can do better than this.

@samir I still have hope. Hold onto it. We need the hope to keep fighting.

@samir Back when I was young I was surprised that in the fantasy genre the main character, the adventurer, was generally treated as a crazy person, because who in their right mind would be looking for adventures. Obviously adventures are great, aren't they?

But now i get it. If I ever meet anyone claiming to be an adventurer, unless they are like very young, I will assume madness.

@licho Adventuring is very much for the young, and they are welcome to it. 😄

There’s a line somewhere in Worlds Beyond Number during their D&D campaign, talking about a character who is basically Wizard Military Police Chief. I’ll never forget it. She “hates that she’s in a Dungeons & Dragons adventure”. Because she just wants things to be organised and normal and for people to stop blowing shit up all the time!

(Sadly, ACAB does extend to wizards, though.)

@samir a few years ago I heard somebody answer to happy new year with “qu’elle sera meilleure” - here’s to this one being better, and that is what I wished for ever since.

@sebug That is what we all want! I like it.

Feels like we’ve had several years of very bad stuff (and good stuff too, of course, but the bad stuff is *really* bad), so at this point it should be *easy*.