Marion G. Harmon, A Writer in Vegas.

Happy New Year, everyone, and isn’t this a great time to be alive? Yes, we have problems. When hasn’t that been true? It’s 2025, and looking back just one century to 1925, penicillin, the first widely used antibiotic, hadn’t been discovered yet. Switchboard operator was a cutting-edge tech job. In the US, being poor meant not having enough to eat, rather than just lacking access to healthy foods. And then there was the racism. And the sexism. And the religious bigotry. Ho boy, there was a lot of that, so much of it that it was barely even questioned.

However far we still have to go, we’ve come a long way, to the point that a realistic portrayal of Steve Rogers’ reaction to all of the technological and social changes between the year of his birth sometime around then and today would cheer even the bitterest social critic.

None of us will live to see 2125 (probably, you never know), but I’m pretty certain that if we pulled off a similar Rip van Winkle-style sleeper story we’d be 1) completely bewildered by the fashions, 2) sad for what was lost, and 3) stunned by humanity’s social and material progress. Because I’m a techno-optimist, I believe that there’s no problem we can’t innovate our way out of as a species. Unless a world-killing asteroid strikes between now and then, we’ll be doing just fine.

I hope that each of us can be just as optimistic about our personal paths this year. The last few years have been hard on a lot of people I know. I’ve had my own problems, mostly self-created. But “Tough, will get better,” is not a bad place to be in. For “Tough, will get worse,” which will be true for too many, I hope that we all have the strong support of family, friends, and neighbors. As Max Ehrmann wrote a century ago, “Whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.”

Bon voyage, my friends.

M.G.Harmon