Wednesday, January 04, 2006
So that was Christmas..
Happy 2006 everybods peeps! Can I trust that everyone enjoyed themselves? Can I rest easy, knowing that the full recuperative benefits of the festive season were bestowed upon all and sundry? Yes / no? Good. Remember; peace on earth and goodwill to all men is for life - not just for Christmas.
This year was my first Christmas as an uncle, my parents' first as grandparents, grandparents as great-grandparents, etc. The new arrival (my bro's daughter) made it - Christmas is rubbish unless you are either a kid or own one / have easy access to one. Just picking out her present in the Early Learning Centre made everything seem magic again.. Shit, you can tell I just turned 29, can’t you? As one musical mukka of mine put it - "one year away from the first stage of old-gitdom". Ooops.. I'd better watch what I say, Mike is 30 on Thursday so he will probably be having one of those moments where you are forced to take a long, hard look into your own soul to try and understand how you feel about such a moment of realisation - the death of youth, the social stigma attached to age in a culture obsessed by youth, etc.
Wanna know what I think? OK - we had a cultural revolution in the 1950's and 60's that saw the birth of youth culture (i.e. the average age of a Hollywood male lead went from 40 to 20: Cary Grant was replaced by James Dean), and market forces have maintained the trend ever since (basically because each new wave of teenagers is larger than the last, thanks to the simple mathematics of the population growth, so the youth market will always remain the largest market. This is only affected by war, disease and famine really) so effectively we have a stagnant pool, where the same ideals (youth, beauty, etc.) are held up and repeated parrot-fashion. It won’t be long before another revolution is needed, the youth will be overthrown and held in special cells whilst the truly beautiful people (those of high moral standing and general benevolence/philanthropy) become recognised as the new demi-gods of culture and society. Mankind will veer away from economics and capitalism and come running back to the comforting apron-strings of mother nature and human kindness. Feats of individual success and achievement will be seen as intrinsically selfish and base, and Man's innate need to be measured against fellow Man will go through the social equivalent of decimalisation. Success and worth will not be measured in how much money you make but rather through how many lives you have improved, how much you are loved and/or appreciated. Society will return to a peaceful state of co-existence from the chaotic money-chasing of today, and leaders will be in the form of benevolent dictatorships - just like the good old days. The world is shrinking, countries will no longer be able to invade other countries without suffering the wrath of the rest of the world (hopefully the rest of the world will stop taking shit from America, too) and soon we'll all learn to live in harmony with each other.
Or not - who knows? Still, it's best to assume that things will improve: the alternative suggests that we came down from the trees just to kill each other and that's not a reason to get out of bed in the morning. If you think it is only 50 years since racism was legally outlawed (perhaps even more recently than that in the case of South Africa), we've come a long way in a short time. If we carry on like this, I reckon by 2050 we'll be doing OK.
2006 is going to be brilliant. I'm not sure how or why, but it will kick arse with both feet - I can feel it. All my horoscopes (taken once daily with a pinch of salt) tell me it will be great, and I have no reason to doubt them. I'm going snow-boarding in Feb, I suspect that this alone will make the year for me.
If anyone is in Reading this Sat come and join the Alex / Mikey joint birthday party, probably kicking off at the Brewery Tap (Castle Street) at 4pm for some pool and beer.
This year was my first Christmas as an uncle, my parents' first as grandparents, grandparents as great-grandparents, etc. The new arrival (my bro's daughter) made it - Christmas is rubbish unless you are either a kid or own one / have easy access to one. Just picking out her present in the Early Learning Centre made everything seem magic again.. Shit, you can tell I just turned 29, can’t you? As one musical mukka of mine put it - "one year away from the first stage of old-gitdom". Ooops.. I'd better watch what I say, Mike is 30 on Thursday so he will probably be having one of those moments where you are forced to take a long, hard look into your own soul to try and understand how you feel about such a moment of realisation - the death of youth, the social stigma attached to age in a culture obsessed by youth, etc.
Wanna know what I think? OK - we had a cultural revolution in the 1950's and 60's that saw the birth of youth culture (i.e. the average age of a Hollywood male lead went from 40 to 20: Cary Grant was replaced by James Dean), and market forces have maintained the trend ever since (basically because each new wave of teenagers is larger than the last, thanks to the simple mathematics of the population growth, so the youth market will always remain the largest market. This is only affected by war, disease and famine really) so effectively we have a stagnant pool, where the same ideals (youth, beauty, etc.) are held up and repeated parrot-fashion. It won’t be long before another revolution is needed, the youth will be overthrown and held in special cells whilst the truly beautiful people (those of high moral standing and general benevolence/philanthropy) become recognised as the new demi-gods of culture and society. Mankind will veer away from economics and capitalism and come running back to the comforting apron-strings of mother nature and human kindness. Feats of individual success and achievement will be seen as intrinsically selfish and base, and Man's innate need to be measured against fellow Man will go through the social equivalent of decimalisation. Success and worth will not be measured in how much money you make but rather through how many lives you have improved, how much you are loved and/or appreciated. Society will return to a peaceful state of co-existence from the chaotic money-chasing of today, and leaders will be in the form of benevolent dictatorships - just like the good old days. The world is shrinking, countries will no longer be able to invade other countries without suffering the wrath of the rest of the world (hopefully the rest of the world will stop taking shit from America, too) and soon we'll all learn to live in harmony with each other.
Or not - who knows? Still, it's best to assume that things will improve: the alternative suggests that we came down from the trees just to kill each other and that's not a reason to get out of bed in the morning. If you think it is only 50 years since racism was legally outlawed (perhaps even more recently than that in the case of South Africa), we've come a long way in a short time. If we carry on like this, I reckon by 2050 we'll be doing OK.
2006 is going to be brilliant. I'm not sure how or why, but it will kick arse with both feet - I can feel it. All my horoscopes (taken once daily with a pinch of salt) tell me it will be great, and I have no reason to doubt them. I'm going snow-boarding in Feb, I suspect that this alone will make the year for me.
If anyone is in Reading this Sat come and join the Alex / Mikey joint birthday party, probably kicking off at the Brewery Tap (Castle Street) at 4pm for some pool and beer.
# posted by AK @ 10:23 
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I was going to write something today but there's plenty there for people to read. I'll have a go tomorrow. :D
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