2024 takes flight to an uncertain destination
REFLECTIONS
Want to know why they invented the calendar? It’s simple. So there could be some demarcation of time, thus giving pundits the opportunity to pretend they have the wisdom of seers. When the old year expires and the new year inspires, it’s time to review and preview. Of course, the immediacy of instant history sometimes lacks the context belonging to archivists who allow their work to brew a bit.
One relative constant about the calendar turning over is that most years seem broken in spirit and body by the time Dec. 31 rolls around. People are so giddy with hope for the new year that they give the outgoing year a black eye.
That compulsion seemed even stronger at the recent calendar transition because war, weather, immigration, economic distress and poisonous political pontifications kicked 2023 like a soccer ball into the abyss.
As 2023 gimped toward the finish line looking like someone had worked it over with a tire iron, it seemed barely ambulatory. We could feel the deadened clank of despair rattling within ourselves.
Thanks to the magic of the calendar, hope suddenly returned in grand fashion with the clinking of champagne glasses when the Times Square ball dropped and we reflexively basked in relishing the promise of 2024.
OK, what will happen in 2024?
Nobody truly knows, of course.
But I have a hunch it will still get dark at night and lighten up in the morning.
And 2024 likely will be dubbed a mega-election year. Some 4.2 billion people — more than half the world’s population — will be eligible to vote in more than 70 countries.
Granted, the 2024 presidential election in the United States unfortunately looms as a rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump — assuming the latter isn’t making license plates in prison.
If Biden vs. Trump once again headlines the election ballot, perhaps all Americans should sit this one out. That would send a message, wouldn’t it? After all the heated political rhetoric in recent years, a little apathy could be a good thing.
Many forecast that artificial intelligence will go off like a cannon in 2024, for good and bad, and increasingly weave itself into the fabric of our lives. Since human intelligence isn’t all that smart at times, some artificial sweetener could give our brain cells a much-needed jumpstart.
Since Nostradamus is six feet under and inflation has made crystal bowls too expensive for forecasters, predicting how 2024 pans out is more perplexing than a 1,000-piece puzzle.
While many things about 2024 remain up in the air, like a ceasefire in Gaza or a deal in Ukraine, some cool things in the air could come to pass this year.
Remember the flying cars in the old Jetsons cartoon television series? Well, 2024 could finally be the year that flying cars actually take to the skies.
Dozens of companies around the world are developing flying cars and they could become commercially available this year.
God, imagine being able to fly over traffic jams on the West Shore Bypass and the Schuylkill Expressway. If it starts a trend, the endless highway reconstruction projects may go the way of the covered wagon.
And speaking of way up in the air, there could be a return to the moon in 2024.
If the possibility of flying cars is not futuristic enough, 2024 could also see the first manned mission to the moon in over half a century. NASA’s Artemis II is due to launch in November and will circumvent the moon and return to Earth, but without landing on the lunar surface.
Granted, it seems a shame to travel all the way to the moon and not step foot on it. But in this circumstance, it’s all about the trip, not the destination. The mission evidently is the mission. The 10day voyage is designed to test the Space Launch System rocket and the Orion spacecraft for future missions. Call it galactic foreshadowing.
While here in January we harbor hopes for a buoyant new year, keep in mind that a year from now 2024 may have staggered toward the finish line looking like an old man wishing to be hit by a bus.
But assuming Doomsday isn’t rude enough to intrude, there always will be 2025 to look forward to.
Isn’t the calendar a dandy invention?
Mike Zielinski, a resident of Berks County, is a columnist, novelist, playwright and screenwriter.
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