Week 112
Lengthy lists of universal regrets and resolutions always accompany the end of a year. We should have consumed less and been outside more. Caused less pain and made more friends. Listened more and spoken less. Higher expectations. Lower cholesterol. So often they are no different from the remorse and resolve of past years. And Elder Advice has the same counsel now as then: whenever you look back on and cringe at your own action or inaction, take comfort in the fact that it is nothing compared to the regret of those who did not buy Hitler’s paintings in the 1920s.
The end of 2022. Elder Advice has taken time to reflect on the passing of another year. Like the two COVID-marred Christmases previous, he spent most of this past holiday season with family and was continually reminded of what is really important … just how many people he has been carrying all these years. Surely they will all thank him one day, in tearful, heartfelt speeches in a large and crowded public venue.
In the meantime, one of Elder Advice’s favourite clients is another lawyer who, in response to a Law Society website demand for a new password of 8 characters, replied: “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves”. He wrote this week to advise, with regret, that 2022 saw the expiration of copyright in Winnie the Pooh, and that there are plans for the release of a slasher movie in 2023 - Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey. Really. Can dreadful endorsements by the silly old bear of products for the incontinent be far behind?
“I don’t feel very much like Pooh today,” said Pooh.
“Could be worse. Not sure how, but it could be.”— Eeyore.
Elder Advice? Of course things could be worse. While much of 2022 was surreal, there were some coincident silver linings:
The return of war to Europe and the spectre of nuclear conflict. But the war in Ukraine has given the rest of us a much-needed lesson in the meaning of “resilience”, and unified the West like no other event in the past 70 years.
The death of Masha Amini. But the tragic death of Ms Amini, aged 22, while in Iranian “morality” police custody, has sparked a nationwide revolt against the repressive Islamic regime.
The earth is still doing its best to kill us. In a year that also featured a polar vortex event, climate crises of searing heat, and their inevitable companions: economic troubles and human suffering, caused growing concern that some parts of the world will become largely uninhabitable due to climate-change-aggravated heat extremes. But renewable energy sources reportedly met the increase in global demand for electricity in 2022, forestalling the expected 4 per cent rise in fossil fuel generation and the emission of 230 million tonnes of CO2. And the UK government has affirmed that, by 2040, the world’s first commercial nuclear fusion reactor will be up and running and may provide near-limitless clean energy.
The global population reached 8 billion. But while there have never been as many people on the planet, population growth has slowed significantly: better educated and supported women everywhere are having fewer children.
The United States appeared on the brink of anarchy last January 6. But subsequent methodical investigations and elections have demonstrated that the American people and the country’s institutions are still capable of both prosecuting and denying public office to those who act solely in their own interest, and those who seek to subvert liberal democracy. Who are often the same.
The death of Her Late Majesty, a seemingly immortal monarch. Sadly, no silver lining evident here: the passing of this Elizabethan age has been accompanied by constant harrying of the Royal Family.
The increasing evidence of the serious negative effects of social media, especially on the neurodevelopment of adolescents. But concern over the attention economy’s negative impacts on our privacy, mental health and the flood of misinformation is finally receiving regulatory attention, and prominent public intellectuals and other celebrities are deactivating their social media accounts.
The admission by a senior scientist of the James Webb project that one of the space telescope’s published images was actually of a slice of chorizo. But the non-sausage portions of the James Webb Space Telescope Project presented us with almost unimaginable images of the universe, reaching back in time almost 13 billion years.
The guilty verdict for the woman who wrote”How to Murder Your Husband” and then did the deed. My own resolution for 2023 is to persuade Lisa to read instead: “Luckiest Girl Alive”.
To Elder Advice it seems an apt description.