Every year around this time I try to come up with something profound to say about the year just ending, the year yet to come, and the challenges that face us all. That is, I try to find something profound, interesting, surprising, informative, challenging, remarkable, enlightening, entertaining, humorous, uplifting, touching, or at least funny to say about the coming of the New Year and the ending of the old one. Sometimes I even succeed…
This was a tough year for the world, for the nation, for the family and community of which I am part, and for me; some of it you’ve already read about in this space (assuming that anybody is reading this space), and some of it will be coming up in the Grad School Diaries, as that series moves into its third year. From a business standpoint, all of the trouble we’ve been expecting over the past decade seems to be coming home to roost; in a broader sense, our entire world is changing beyond recognition, and in ways and directions we could never have anticipated. It is a time of trial, and challenge, not just for me but for all of us…
I don’t pretend to know a lot about anything, and at the moment, I don’t have any idea where this voyage is taking me. It’s possible that the next 12 months will determine what I’m going to do next, where I’m going to live, what I’m going to end up doing for a living, who will be coming with me on the next leg of this maddening journey, when I will find the answers I’m looking for, or even what I’m going to be when I grow up. Assuming that I do grow up…
If anything is certain in this life, it’s that none of us really know what will happen next. This is true even of the dullest lives, and it’s certainly true in a life like mine, where weird, strange and wildly synchronistic events are just part of the landscape. I don’t know if 2012 will measure up to 2011 for unexpected and truly disturbing events, but considering that I study people (and institutions created by people) it seems likely that we’re not going to run out of things to celebrate, debate, dispute, explore, examine, research or mock any time soon. Want to come along? It might be fun…
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