Hindsight

It's supposed to be 20/20. After scanning the paper's "year in review," I'm certain the saying isn't true. In fact, I think much of this past year won't be seen clearly for a decade--and by then a lot of details will fuzz away. I didn't make any predictions last year; just had a hope that I'd do better doing what I ought. Without going into details--I did nothing dramatically better. Maybe a little better, here and there; maybe a little worse, here and there.

Cut off from a lot of people, not serving in church anymore, worse health--on the other hand my commute to work is a hundred times faster these days.

I've no idea what next year will bring, except that "if you had known what would bring you peace" seems to apply, and the various flavors of tribal madness show no signs of remission. I think it is safe to predict that there will be squabbles about the vaccines--some saying they are being treated as guinea pigs, some complaining about distribution, and some searching for who to blame for the inevitable failures and side effects.(*) And the newsertainment outlets will continue to peddle the exciting rather than the true.

In other words, what passes for normal in our fallen world.

And I can dust off last year's hope for the next year. It's still timely.

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(*) There always are--it's a tradeoff between the large fraction who die from a disease and the small fraction who are injured from the vaccine or who don't get the immunity after all. I learned that in elementary school. True, Mom was a nurse, so my education may have had points of difference with most's.