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.