25% of the 21st century is over

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Hello, friends. This is probably, in fact, quite possibly the last episode of this podcast that I'm recording in 2024. You will be listening to this sometime in the middle of January because I, you know, schedule episodes in advance these days on account of the fact that I need to get rid of the tendency in me that has to do everything now. And I'm trying to bring more order to the way I make things and the way I work.

But, you know, new year resolutions are a dime a dozen. I think I did fairly well on the resolutions I made last year. I had promised myself that I will cook at least a full meal all by myself for my entire family and I did not do that. But I did promise myself that I will have some more discipline in my personal life as far as social media is concerned, as far as waking up and going to sleep is concerned and I did do that fairly well. I failed on occasion, but by and large, I did fairly well. And I also promised myself that I just spoke about social media. I promised myself that I will reduce my reliance on social media tools, etc. And I did that really well. I really quit Instagram and Twitter and Instagram. I'm now social media free and that I'm very happy about.

So 2024, as far as my personal, as far as the things that I can affect in my own life, I did okay, I think. But then there comes another year and you think, what other changes do I need to make? Do I need to make any changes at all? And the answer to that is usually yes, because we are never satisfied. But I was looking at the year and it is 2025. And what struck me about it is that I grew up in the 90s, where the 21st century looked like a very optimistic place to be. A great, nice period of time where a lot of problems will be gone. We were optimistic about the future, even as far back as the 60s and 70s. Science fiction used to imagine the 21st century as the promised land of some sort, where when we get there, it'll all be great. And of course, things are not great, but also things could be worse. And maybe that worse is yet to come. Maybe it is still in our future and we are not there yet, but we are heading there and we will get there. Who knows?

But what struck me about 2025 is that we are almost 25 years into the 21st century. That's one-fourth of the 21st century. That's 25% of the 21st century. That's where we are right now. There is only three fourths of the 21st century left. I was looking at our lifespans, like, you know, 70, 75, 80 years. And with some help, maybe a hundred years. I was looking at our lifespans and wondering why we pay the century so much importance. I think it's because it is the closest round number that can correspond to our, to our idea of a lifespan.

But if we lived for as long as a fruit fly does, our youngest people, our most enthusiastic hormonal teenagers, for lack of a better word, adolescents, will have been born this morning. And our most respected elders, the champions of our community, the thought leaders, the kings and the emperors, etc., will have been born last Friday. And then maybe every weekend would be a time when we wonder if we have lived our lives in a virtuous manner. Maybe every weekend would be a time for us to leave lessons for future generations. It's Saturday. I'm about to die. I hope that people who were born this morning are kind to each other, that are people who will grow up by Monday to be good, humane beings and that they will contribute meaningfully to our society and that our society will continue to live on and prosper. And by society, of course, they mean the little group of larva that is in a puddle of water by the corner of a algae-covered pond much as we do.

For us, that algae-covered pond is a planet and we have dreams of r