A Tortuous 2023 Portends an Epic 2024 

The end is near.

The end of 2023, that is. Not the other thing. But it does bring one to pause for a moment, doesn’t it?

A lot of folks think it’s been the year that wouldn’t end. But not for me. They say that time goes faster as you age. I have noticed that recently. Well, time flies when you’re having fun, right? Maybe that’s it. All that fun I’ve been having this year has made it go by in a hurry.

It has been a strange year. After an oversupply of snow last winter, we got a taste of a typical hot and dry Arizona summer. Of course, Arizona last summer was more like Death Valley which itself was like visiting the sun. Some days here this summer it was just too hot to ride my bike or even stay at the family summer cottage. We missed summer thunderstorms. I mostly gave up on watering the lawn.

On the other hand, we had a lot of sunny days and this fall was one of the nicest I can remember. Now it’s winter and there’s no snow anywhere around here. I even went for a bike ride on Christmas Eve morning before it started raining for several days.

Heading North

At my age I’m all for shorter winters but not at the cost of hot, dry summers. It will be interesting to see if this year’s weather was from El Niño, climate change or both. Climate change is supposedly prompting numerous creatures and diseases to migrate northward to cooler areas. I won’t try to keep ahead of them by moving to Duluth, where tulips bloom in June.

This year it has seemed like we’re in the midst of an election even when it’s almost a year away. It’s seemed like that all year. The number of useful accomplishments by Congress this year could fit on the paper that fits inside a fortune cookie. Wars continue in many locations around the world and they seem to be growing. It seems like a lot of small countries are rising up because the large countries are too busy fighting their own battles to notice.

And COVID remains, even though most of us are confidently foregoing masks. Stay tuned on that because cases are rising again. Many states are dumping loads of expired masks and other medical gear. Remember when you couldn’t even find a mask? I’m keeping current on all my recommended vaccines.

The year 2023 will be remembered as the year artificial intelligence (AI) took off. The concept has been around for awhile but it is now becoming ubiquitous. The hope is that it can advance humanity in numerous ways such as finding cures for diseases. However, it can also be used to generate things like videos of anyone doing and saying anything (in their own voice).

The fear is that it is evolving faster than we can control it. And think about this: since it makes decisions based on collected data, that very data will soon include previous AI-generated data, which we already know can be very wrong.

The COVID years were so disruptive, they forced a reboot of our way of life, bringing about numerous changes. This was the inevitable year of painful reckoning as our new reality began to take shape and a modicum of stability returned.

Help Yourself

We’ve now become a self-serve nation, blamed in part on a shortage of workers. It’s been building for awhile but it seems that 2023 was the year it officially became acceptable for any business to require customers to use a computer for any type of service. For some people, a low-end smart phone is as much computer as they can afford. Many don’t even have that option.

And to ensure acceptance of this new reality, businesses have practically eliminated customer service. We are directed to their websites or apps for help where you can “chat” with someone that might be an AI-generated human interface, cheerfully ready to help you set up autopay. Even a stop at MacDonald’s can force you to use a kiosk to place your order.

We’ve reached the point where a lot of us seniors just can’t keep up with all the changes anymore. Sometimes, even when we try to have fun, we can’t. Too often now I find myself flipping channels between political news and old TV Westerns. But that’s OK, right? Each one involves people arguing about the way things should be.

We’re inundated with information that seems vitally important but isn’t. We are constantly reminded that we are going to get hacked. There’s much more to say about 2023 but let’s just let it end.

We may discover, however, that this year was a picnic compared to next year. You know, 2024. Yes, that 2024. And it’s a leap year.

It’s coming and we can’t stop it. It’s jam packed with important dates like election dates, court dates and mandates. It could last forever or even an eternity, whichever comes first. That’s a really long time, especially near the end. And it’s going to be hot, even if the temperature doesn’t say so.

So, buckle up. It should be epic.