Lists, Damn Lists, and Predictions

Here we go again. 

After all the last-minute shopping, the parties, gift giving, and awkward, yet obligatory photos with relatives barely known and hardly ever seen, we, like Orpheus leading his wife Eurydice out of the depths of Hades, will take a final glimpse back over our shoulders.  We’ll hear the talking heads and talk show hosts review the ups and downs of 2009, its accomplishments and failures.  We'll dedicate the minimally-acceptable amount of time to remembering those who are no longer with us- those we believe were taken before their time (whatever that means), those who went out with their boots on (whatever that means), and those who would go only after they’d exhausted themselves kicking and screaming.

No doubt, there will be lists.  Lots of them. 

Everybody loves lists.  We love them because of the creating and counting and crossing off of items.  Lists are like bonsai trees; we find comfort and enjoyment in the effort a well-maintained list requires.  And so there will be best song, album and video lists, best game lists, best drama or sitcom show lists, best movie lists, best actor lists, and biggest political snafu lists to name just a few. 

There will be plenty 'worst of' lists, too, because it’s never enough to discuss the ‘best of’ anything without also giving face time to all the things that disgusted, bored, or brought us discomfort.  We have a need to remind ourselves and others of people or experiences we wouldn’t care to see or repeat in a thousand years.

But we are not counting down the days of any regular old year.  This is 2009, the end of a decade.  It was, like all decades, filled with particularly bleak periods.  If the decade could speak, it would probably ask us what we expected, especially when it began under incredibly dire circumstances.   This was, after all, the decade that was supposed to usher in chaos, destruction, and death on a grand scale.  Wasn’t that what all the Y2k fuss was about? 

Only those things didn’t happen at all.  Or at least they didn’t happen as the direct result of computers that would not/could not tell the difference between the year 2000 and 1900.

And that brings us to the last thing we’ll see and hear plenty of in the next few days: predictions.  The role of the prognosticator is similar to that of the meteorologist.  It's, admittedly, a tough gig.  When you issue a negative prediction, no one really expects you to be right.  In fact, negative predictions aren’t taken all that seriously unless a recent one that wasn’t heeded resulted in a lot of pain and anguish.   And when you do manage to get it right, people believe that you were somehow responsible for what happened because you didn’t give them enough warning or didn’t warn them strenuously enough.  I feel for prognosticators. 

But I don’t pay much attention to them, either.

So strap yourself in and hang on.  The ride might get a little bumpy and a little boring at times, but it- like this decade- will end soon enough.

Unless you’re one of those Gregorian purists who believe that the new decade begins in 2011 and not 2010.