What We Have to Look Forward to in 2023
We have many beginnings, and there are more to come. The beginnings are what we look forward to. Or do we?
The coming year ushers in uncomfortable news. As we look forward to 2023, the domestic economy’s health lingers as high costs linger, hiring slows, and salaries stagnate owing to supply chain problems, the war in Ukraine, China’s ambiguous post-pandemic direction, and other factors leading to high inflation.
Traveling back to the 19th Century, an interesting word for you: Putative. According to Merriam-Webster, putative, used before a noun, is a formal word meaning “generally believed, supposed, or assumed to be (something).”
According to strategist CEO Jason Trennert, investors should assume there will be a recession in 2023. The Economist has the same grim posture: “[the] world is reeling from geopolitics, energy, and economics shocks.”
And thus, a word has been resurrected. Editors of the Collins English Dictionary have announced “permacrisis” as their word for 2022, now edging toward 2023. Labeled as “an extended period of instability and insecurity.”
Still with me? Good!
Let’s see what else; oh yes. The internet and algorithms have made mindless shopping user-friendly whether or not we need all the purchases we’re clicking on. It steers us to squander more than we can afford and buy things we don’t want or need, all for an adrenalin rush that dissipates as quickly as we finish clicking.
And here comes some more “good” news.
A new analysis report reveals just how destructive free speech in higher education has become — and, in 2023 will see it getting worse. And what’s particularly disturbing about this report is that we can expect the next generation to reject the fundamental American principle of free expression.
Why do social media companies think it’s okay to censor a news story for reporting legitimate news about the Biden family? (This is not a political statement, but rather an observation about free speech roadblocks.)
Speaking of free speech, in today’s headline, Twitter suspended the accounts of several journalists without any explanation. They all seem to be left-leaning journalists.
Let’s move on.
Something has gone irrational with the intellectual life of our culture. Academic life encompasses the life of the intellect, that is, the life of thought, knowledge, and ideas.
As enrollments decline and programs are cut, mainstream educational institutions have become uncomfortable places for teachers who want to pass on a zeal for humanist learning.
But there is something more profound than that. A failure of self-understanding causes a crisis of confidence in ourselves, and we are haunted by a sense that what we do is somehow inadequate or pointless — a failure of imagination as much as it is a failure of understanding. It is the practice of prosperity and the pursuit of narcissistic tendencies culminating in the end of human beings.
One of the new battlegrounds is in dictionaries. How do we classify men who become women and women who become men? Thus, the fluid terms of “man” and “woman” as we knew them to be as clear definitions are now contested.
Death by injection
A heated debate about lethal injection will not die very soon as some states are jostling for alternative execution approaches to lethal injection. Eighteen individuals have been put to death so far in 2022.
Some domestic manufacturers stopped supplying the drug sodium thiopental needed for the lethal cocktail to distance themselves from associating with capital punishment.
But botched injections and a scarcity of drugs have led some states to consider previously discredited methods, such as the electrocution technique or death by a firing squad.
At this point, I applaud you if you are still with me.
New year resolution
I will not bore you with a list of my New Year’s resolutions because I have never made a resolution, nor will I ever. I live my life the same all year round.
Every day is a determination to get up, make the bed, have coffee, dress for the gym, and work out nearly daily. I try to eat right, and when I don’t, I abstain from inflicting self-flagellation.
Resolutions are dumb since most people forget their resolutions as soon as they are made.
In addition, I will not spend time today poking fun at New Year’s Eve traditions — like drinking enough champagne to burp the alphabet in different languages. Or watching an enormous light-up ball that costs thousands of dollars go from one point on the vertical axis to a lower point on the same axis.
My may yous for you
Did you know that the name Isaac is the anglicized transliteration of the Hebrew name ‘Yiṣtcḥāq,’ which means, ‘He laughs,’ or ‘He will laugh?’
For years, my husband and I made it a habit to begin the New Year at a comedy club. Guess why.
May you begin the new year laughing and continue doing so for the rest of 2023.
May you remember the events on New Year’s Eve and not lose them in an alcoholic fog.
May you have a manageable hangover on New Year’s Day.
May you amalgamate fluids with somebody attractive at midnight on New Year’s Eve and not be attacked by the drunkest person with bad breath who inevitably has a tongue like an unhinged eel.
Let’s begin the year on a happy note. It’s a time to leave the old behind and make way for the new. We can move on only when we look back, laugh at, and change our perspectives. The improved outlook will help us see the world differently and adopt a more positive approach.
May you remember 2022 with a warm wistfulness, no matter how good or bad.
Cheers, everyone, and Happy Holidays!
Thank you sincerely for reading and sticking with me to the end.