The Thomas Chronicles

And yet another year passes…

Perhaps it’s just me, but I’m getting nostalgic for time not so long ago when a year felt like a year. It doesn’t anymore. Back then when New Year’s Eve rolled around, we could look behind us and feel the weight of an entire year borne on the back of our memories. A year now feels more like a month or a couple of months. And months like days.

We wake up, brush our teeth, take our warm drowsy showers, and work for eight hours to the sound of tap-tapping on our keyboards. Then, we wake one uneventful morning, fall mindlessly into our now robotic routines and realize that yet another year had gone by. And here we thought it was just Monday. Hardly anything to be excited about.

We shrug at our reflection, not bothering to take the foamed toothbrush out of our drooling mouths.

Brush… brush, brush… Scrape, scrape… RINSE!

Replace the light bulb. Take out the garbage. Remember to eat fruits and salads. Good digestion makes you so much more pleasant.

We scroll these reminders in our heads with practiced erudition. What’s that?

Before us sits eight or twenty different Japanese cars waiting as though for meal tickets. Red light. The morning rock talkshow personality (we’re all personalities nowadays, aren’t we?) shouts it’s a new year. We should celebrate. Toast. Brush up our memories for the words to Auld Langsyne. He spits out his words like abrasive elbows or perhaps like sandpaper to file down our wills to his wisdom. He has a throaty sort of voice, the kind that resonates like having pebbles ejected down a long plastic tube. He is cheerful, laughing at just the right moments. Let’s see — no terrorist attacks, stocks stable, 2 inches of rainfall in the Great Plains last week.

The Board is Green. Go.

We arrive at work and stare a electrons all day. We watch a square box where bouncing electrons tell us what someone else said and calls itself an email. We do it for four hours, eat an unsatisfying lunch, watch the square black box for another four hours (Was 1984 really over twenty years ago? How did that happen?).

Then we go home and debate for hours how to satiate our palates. A restaurant? How ’bout something spicy? We devour the slop on our plate, perhaps pop an anti-depressant or four or eight, drown in mindless shouting TV shows, and drift to sleep listening to Chuck Norris and Christie Brinkley sell exercise machines that’ll probably end up somewhere in the garage if bought.

Then the year’s over. We wanted to have a good time and go out with friends. Perhaps even throw confetti and watch the fireworks exploding every year down at the pier or downtown.

But it’s only Monday and time passes so quickly nowadays. Tomorrow will be another year. And perhaps a month later, who knows? We just might be present for a meaningful conversation, a good laugh… maybe even have time to throw tufts of confetti.

Other Thoughts to ring in the New Year:

Atlas Shrugs: Have a Wicked New Year!
BlackFive: Happy New Year!
Anne Coulter: Kwanzaa: Holiday From the FBI
La Shawn Barber: Happy New Year!!!

Update 1/1/2007:

Some people reading my New Year’s post thought it sounded pretty dour. Well, I must admit it is a somber post. When writing it, somewhere along the way, I took on the persona of what I thought to be a sizable portion of the American people. With studies showing that Americans are growing lonelier, malignant narcissism having an exponential rise, and with our Lord warning us that the love will grow cold in the hearts of men, I think we are sailing into the end of the age. At what point in that progression, who knows? It might still be 50 years off or more.

There is yet so many things to be grateful for, so much beauty, love, and laughter here when it is still day. May our Lord Jesus grant America full Christian revival, victory, and renaissance!

To the confounding of our enemies and the continued prosperity of the United States of America! Happy New Year!

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