1 Sharaf 166 B.E. (Baha’i calendar)
Soundtrack in my head: The Untouchables, “Wild Child”
It’s kind of weird to see another decade coming to an end. A couple years ago, I saw a sign outside a carpet place that said “No interest until 2010.” It was the first time I’d seen the year 2010 on a sign and it creeped me out some. It seemed alien to me, like some scary science fiction movie. “In space, no one can hear you scream.”
Now that 2010 on the Gregorian calendar is just a 25 hours away, it doesn’t seem so creepy. But I still am kind of getting used to writing the year beginning with a “2” instead of a one. It seems like a completely different world in some ways. It makes it hard to believe I was born in 1967. It’s almost as if that was a completely different calendar and a completely different world. The passage of time seems a little bit easier to grasp when I realize I was born in 124 B.E. and it’s now 166 B.E.
I remember anticipating the arrival of 1980, 1990, and 2000 with excitement, as if it were part of some big countdown. (I was too young to remember the transition to 1970). Now that we’ve passed the 2000 mark, I’m like, “Now what?’ I know a lot of people are holding their breath about 2012, specifically 21 December of that year. My hunch is that it will not the end of the world, or a day when the whole world suddenly gets some kind of spiritual awakening. My guess is that if there’s any change, it will be like crossing from Illinois to Wisconsin—the actual border crossing itself is innocuous, but after a while, we’ll feel like we’re in a different state.
For me, the most significant event of this decade now coming to an end was when I crossed the border from Illinois to Wisconsin and made Madison my home. As I said in my last blog post, moving to a new city changes everything, and it was even more pronounced because my lifestyle changed from apartment living to co-op living.
I find it funny that no one can really agree or decide what this decade now passing should be called. We had the Seventies, Eighties, Nineties, and now what? The Oh’s? The Oh-oh’s? The Ohties? The Aughts? The Aughties?
Whatever it’s called, we’re starting to hear retrospectives of the last ten years now, though some may argue that the new decade doesn’t really start until 2011. They’ll talk about 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, the tsunami, Katrina, Obama. They’ll talk about trends in music, though the most significant trend has more to do with how music is bought rather than any specific genre.
I do see 2010 as a good time for making resolutions. I’m making some that pertain to community, finances, and spiritual growth. I figure that with the transition into a new decade, resolutions made at this time seem to me to have greater meaning. Though they are probably just as easy to break.
In any case, I hope everyone has a most enjoyable New Year. Tune in to this blog for more posts during Gregorian year 2010.
