The Sound of Silence

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The Warrior Sage has been silent these past few months-in reflection and anticipation. Saying goodbye to 2009 and gearing up for 2010, the last year in the first decade of the 21st century. Consider:

• In politics: The U.S. started the decade with George W. Bush at the helm and ended with the first African-American president, Barack Obama.
• In terrorism: There was 9/11; Bali, Istanbul, Madrid, Amman, Russia, Mumbai....
• As for conflict: Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, the Congo, Lebanon, Israel-Gaza, Somalia...
• And then there have been natural disasters: From Gujarat, India' earthquake in 2001 where 12,000 lost their lives to the nearly 200,000 lost in the 2004 Tsunami in Southeast Asia to Hurricane Katrina, the Burma/Myanmar cyclone...and now Haiti.
• And let us not forget the economy: The world's economy doubled in size between 1998 and 2008 but the decade is ending with the crushing realization of how interconnected are the economies around the world. Remember the Dot-com bubble? The housing bubble? Both of which burst, big time.
• How about energy: Is the world heating up or cooling down? Do we have enough fuel or not? For what? At what cost? Oil was slightly over $30 during 2003 and reached $60 in 2005 and peaked at $147 in 2008.
• And in technology: At the stroke of midnight on January 1, 2000, we breathlessly awaited the adverse impact of Y2K only to be rewarded with a decade of revolutionary advancements in technology. Who would have thought then that today's 10 year olds would have ipods or iphones, their own pc's and accounts on something called MySpace or Facebook. (Who would have thought then that you could "unfriend" a friend?)
• Are we alone or what? The Hubble Space Telescope was repaired....maybe we really are not the only ones in this universe. Throughout the decade, exploration of Mars continues to reveal important discoveries. Let us not forget though that we lost 7 in the Space Shuttle Columbia's disintegration in 2003.
• Read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000s_(decade)#Science_and_technology

This may be heavy stuff. Personally, I loved these past 10 years for all its ups and downs but in the end, 2009 was a year to forget. I suspect there are a lot of people who would like to forget 2009 as well. So let's say goodbye to it and press on. Let us not carry the burdens of a world but carry our neighbors' groceries; carry laughter in our hearts; hold a child's smile in our mind's eye. Let us not cocoon. Let us not bury our heads in fear of losing them. Let us move past self-preservation - hope for and envision a new future.

Let us turn this "sound of silence" into a time of re- creation, re-storation, and re-newal.