2025: Wow!

Living through 2025 wows me on several levels.

The year number alone, I think, is a little bizarre for any baby boomer. We can remember wondering if 1984 would turn out like Orwell’s book (no, but 40 years later it’s looking more factual). We also remember wondering if the year 2001 — which then seemed so far away and futuristic — would be anything like the movie (again, no, and 25 years later, still no).

We increasingly agèd boomers find ourselves a quarter of a century into the new millennium — a century clearly labeled “The Future” for us. It’s weird and somehow ultimately disconnecting. Or at least disappointing.

For some time now, I’ve wondered if the new millennium did something to our minds. A hidden Y2K problem. The new century feels like an unraveling, as if people have lost their minds en masse. We’ve devolved into teams and sides that give no quarter.

Since the 1970s I’ve perceived a devaluing of intellect and education and an elevation of feelings and opinions.¹

For some years, I’ve had this plaque above my desk:

Just my little Orwellian reminder of the world I actually live in now.²

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What stuns me far more than the surprising year number is what has happened in society and politics, especially the latter. It’s entirely the wrong sort of Wow! — the emotions here are dismay and disgust, not delight and awe.

There is a well-known quote due to Martin Luther King, Jr., that says:

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

King based his succinct and memorable line on several lines from an 1853 sermon by abolitionist minister Theodore Parker:

“I do not pretend to understand the moral universe. The arc is a long one. My eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by experience of sight. I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice.”

And I believe it is true that, current circumstances aside, in the long run humanity becomes better at humanity. We have plenty of room to grow, but we are arguably better than we used to be.

At least, in the scope of centuries. The 20th century had its Wow! moments on both sides of the ledger. Two World Wars plus some “police actions” (called “wars” by anyone actually in them). But also, we walked on the Moon and invented quantum mechanics.

With all its ups and downs, the 20th century always seemed about progress. It brought us Civil Rights and Women’s Rights. It brought us a high standard of living, at home and at work. It brought us regulatory agencies and laws that made us all safer.

But in the late 1970s it starts to become too much for many (in all walks of life), and the pendulum begins to swing away from social progress towards narcissism and greed. The 1980s became rightfully labeled the Me! decade. The 1987 film Wall Street installs in pop culture the line, “Greed is good.”

Through the 1990s our entertainment media becomes ever more fantastic (as in fantasy-like). Computer rendering improves constantly, making our screen fantasies ever more lifelike and immersive. The interweb begins to infest our lives. Social media is born. The anti-education, anti-intellectual, anti-expert currents that have been roiling since the late 1970s begin to have an impact on our social intelligence. Put bluntly, through the amplifying effects of isolated bubbles of social and entertainment media, the cultural mind gets stupider.

In the latter part of the last century, the critical stigma attached to popular media fades, which is good but has the unintended effect for many of reducing their diet to only popular media — nothing challenging or difficult to digest. This, too, makes the cultural gestalt stupider. We seem uncomfortable in our own minds, afraid to be alone with our thoughts.

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And then The Future arrives. A brand-new century.

But after the party, a growing sense of disquiet sets in. Progress seems to stall. Socially, we seem splintered and apart. There are fewer and fewer shared experiences. Movies largely devolve into franchises cranking out endless repeats of the same thing, like cars on an assembly line.³

I think many factors conspired to make this century what it is. As so often happens, progress steamrolled many. Anti-intellectual currents became strong enough to corrupt education: many were never taught critical thinking or exposed to other cultures. This results in a profound culture discomfort in a globalized world.

Technology plays a huge role: never have so many been so connected. And yet also so disconnected. Cultural touchstones have crumbled. The magnetic north to our moral compass wanders all over the map.

Decades of high-definition lifelike screen unreality where life is cheap (and guns are the norm). Plus, the snark and casual cruelty so often a part of our entertainment. Game shows and so-called “Reality TV” now approach the levels depicted in Rollerball and Running Man (science fiction again acting as a prescient mirror to humanity). Life through a screen now: fiction and sensationalized nonfiction, TV shows, movies, games, social media, text messages. Our phones even insert themselves into our experience of live events we attend.

I first noticed my discomfort while watching The Return of the King back in 2003. All those CGI deaths in the climactic battle. I kept thinking of all the CGI wives and children mourning. Thanks to CGI, the battle was lifelike and immersive — easy to believe in, easy to become lost in. But then also easy to believe in the consequences and realities. Those same realities are in the book, of course, but text gives one distance that immersive live-action CGI-assisted cinematography doesn’t. Quite to the contrary, it brings one viscerally into the action.

Not long after, I heard a joke pointing out the deaths of all the workers (and possibly their families) on the Death Star when the rebels blow it up. Viewers see this climatic conclusion as a victory worth celebrating and never give a thought to the civilians. War is hell, but this is entertainment. A popcorn movie.

It also got me to thinking about the destruction of Alderaan in the 1977 film. One might argue some culpability in Death Star crews (unless they had no choice), but an entire planet of innocent people is a bitter pill for a cheap thrill.

While I do think media affects us, it definitely reflects us. I think there is a feedback cycle between our media (our common art) and our general cultural gestalt. They affect each other. At this point, though there are some happy exceptions, our media is stupid, childish, and often casually cruel.

Because that has become our cultural gestalt. It has gotten us into a fine fix. The current administration has either torn down or squandered the good will and values this country has represented for two centuries.

It’s the wrong polarity, but Wow!

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A very personal Wow! for me — in multiple ways — was turning 70 last Fall. I’ve never been much concerned about my age, and each decade birthday was marked mostly by a mild surprise. I figured my “what the hell, why not” lifestyle would be the end of me by 30, let alone 40, let alone etc.

I have long appreciated the Hunter S. Thompson quote:

“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-reserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming ‘Wow! What a Ride!’”

As well as this quote due to Jack London:

“I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”

When I hit 60 it seemed like an event.⁴ My parents threw me birthday parties in childhood, but no one since has (nor have I expected it). For 60, I asked a buddy to host a party (no presents). It was a pretty good — pretty big — party.⁵ Nice way to commemorate that milestone.

Turning 70 felt like a bigger deal. My blasé attitude towards my age seemed to be taking a break — 70 feels old. And for the first time, I’m starting to feel downright creaky. Somehow, despite being a heavy user of computer keyboards since mid-1980, I’ve managed to dodge any kind of carpel tunnel or hand/wrist ailments. Until this year when my left wrist started complaining loudly about certain rotations. (Why my left wrist? I’m right-handed.) I spent several weeks trying to not rotate it that way (turning my palm towards me), and now it seems fine.

But those kinds of aches and pains are becoming more common. I used to weather the storms like a tank. I seem to have turned into an antique sedan.

So, not thrilled about 70, but life is what it is, not what you want it to be.

As it turned out, my dear friend and local sister BentleyMom⁶ threw me a surprise party. Caught me utterly off-guard. Thought we were going out for dinner at a favorite restaurant. When we get there, all my local friends were there along with my sister and her husband who flew in from California.

Biggest personal Wow! I’ve ever been gifted with, no contest. A lifetime memory to cherish. As awful and challenging as 2025 was, this bright ray of sunshine is my takeaway for the year.

And hopefully 2026 will bring sunlight to one and all.

Happy New Year!

Until next time…

1. I labeled it “The Death of a Liberal Arts Education”.

2. I hasten to add that I find all five assertions anathema.

3. Seriously. The Avengers (2012) is the sixth movie in the Marvel franchise. It’s the last of their Phase One movies (which began with Ironman in 2008). I didn’t see it until somewhere later in their Phase Three (2016-2019). Call it 2018. By then I’d seen quite a few Marvel (and other superhero) movie.

What struck me about The Avengers was how little had changed. In particular, the cute quips and how every fight — regardless of the superhero powers involved — always boils down to fisticuffs. That’s when I started to lose interest in superhero movies. They too closely resemble that Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots toy.

4. Hitting 60 years, not 60 MPH. I do that all the time.

5. And I got some presents anyway.

6. Bentley, the American Bully, has appeared often here. Delightful dog!