Resolution
If wishing made it so…
I’ve been buried in lists: Best Of’s, countdowns, Top 10s and Number Ones. Like an avalanche they’ve come, determined to wrap the last year in a neat little package. From geopolitics to gardening, 12 months have been boiled down to bullet points. Hell, there’s even a Best Of for the best of’s. For the google-challenged and mentally exhausted, I suppose. It’s a ritual, tradition, as symbolic as the ball drop. The calendar marks a Great Purge, a grand send off of recent memory to make way for the uninhibited near-future. How else could the waves of resolutions gain any traction? We all promise one thing or another, to ourselves or each other: lose weight, stop smoking, and the rest. It’s irresistible.
How boring.
The pledges are useless. Hollow commitments thrown out at 12:01 a.m. in hopes that some of the magic that fills the chilled night air will bless them, make them real. Of course, it won’t. There is nothing special about January 1 that didn’t exist the night before, and the same can be said for all the blog posts, summary articles and yearly farewells that are pushed live as well. They’re a fake. Do not get caught up in that swirling, meandering cycle of remembrance. All there is is forward, is you.
“If a thermonuclear war takes place, the future will not be worth discussing. So let the missiles slumber eternally on their pads and let us observe what may come in the non-atomized world of the future.”
Isaac Asimov, 1964
Though not completely accurate, Asimov’s predictions of life in 2014 do hit their share of bull’s-eyes. As of January 1, people around the world routinely use tablet computers, video calling and automated appliances. Robots are still in their infancy. Self-driving cars exist. And while we’ve yet to break ground on the first moon colony, there is an unmanned visitor currently gracing the surface of Mars that was built by human hands. Throwing himself 50 years into the future, Asimov seemed right at home.
He was right about those triumphs, the small miracles that disappear into the fabric of everyday life. So too was he correct in predicting a widening digital divide, where those with access to technology have more access to more of it. The commoditization of smartphones might help alleviate this.
We are, now, closer than ever to realizing a world where technology drags us — all of us — forward. And not by way of some sterilized environment found in the slick productions of Samsung or Microsoft, where the only ones who benefit are white collar business-types. 2014 could be the year we turn the corner on electric cars, print spare parts from home, and create windows out of pixels that fit in everyone’s pocket. We’re nearly there.
The barriers will continue to break faster than they can be built. There will be progress, as sure as there are boots on the ground. And it won’t be because of some care-free commitment spouted off in haste, but through desire, and trial and error, by fire: a war of attrition.
So let’s give it up for the new year. We’ve stumbled into it headfirst, shining brightly albeit slightly confused. The champagne’s been drunk, the lists have been read. Now make of it what you will. The year is yours.
