Musings of a Timid observer

Friends, as the embers of another year flicker low, I feel a chill wind whispering through the cracks in the edifice we call progress. It's not the usual New Year's shivers, the anxieties about resolutions, the hollow clink of glasses filled with liquid courage. It is a deeper tremor, a confession from the soul. that's been ill at ease for a while. This year served up losses. From loved ones gone too soon, to opportunities dashed through no fault of my own, to the inescapable loss of contentment at living in step with the just the way life is. Never more has the phrase " personal is political " resonated so much. Never have I seen change, innovation, and hoe mounted everywhere but in the realm of communal decision making how we decide the relations of life between us. For years, I, too, sang the siren song of self-reliance, the gospel of "hard work saves us.". That's a bit f luck and surely we can all make it.I was intimately aware of the challen