The NYE Post, For What It's Worth

This being New Year’s Eve 2022, I naturally feel that I should be making an end of year post. Well, the division of time into years is purely arbitrary with no cosmic significance, but that’s how we humans like to do things so let’s pretend that a calendar year is in some way significant.

The spirit is willing, I think, but where to start and what to say? Let’s keep it short because I’m not didactic by nature and I can’t be bothered to spend all night typing, especially since I know that nothing I say will make any difference.

On a global scale, 2022 has been troublesome, with the war in Ukraine and social upheaval in Iran, Afghanistan, China, and parts of South America. From America we continue to hear the drip, drip, drip of Trump’s inane babbling. Systems are breaking or broken everywhere, including in the UK where the NHS – the cornerstone of good governance and the welfare state for more than seventy years – is under serious threat of collapse. I look around and see politicians following their personal and ideological agendas while the voices of ordinary people are raised in complaint and calls for help and for change.

There is, of course, very much more that could be said, but that will have to do for now. I suppose I should add, however, that no talk of 2022 would be sufficient without noting that nature has become even more insistent in reminding us that we take it for granted at our peril.

So what of my personal affairs? 2022 was notable for all the firsts that came along and which were noted on this blog. It was a year in which I grew closer to my small family, but also saw several stars in the firmament overhead disappear. It seems that’s just the way of things for me and always has been; close family ties and bright but distant stars never did sit easily together in my life.

As for life itself, I’m still observing that one and suppose I might describe the current view as coherently as I’m able. It’s undergone a shift this year as the heart issue has begun to make its presence felt more routinely. The road ahead has assumed the appearance of a narrowing ledge with a steep drop into the abyss on either side. I walk it not knowing whether some small slip will take me down into whatever the abyss holds, but there’s nothing to do but keep tramping on for as long as the ledge holds firm.

And that’s about it. I expect I’ll be back tomorrow and I hope I’ll have something lighter to say. In the meantime, to those who go into 2023 optimistically, I wish that it shouldn’t disappoint. Thanks for your quiet company through a year that’s nearly over. And may we all please spare a thought for those living under repressive regimes everywhere (although I feel an instinctive sense that there are more repressive regimes than we care to admit.)