2014
We celebrate New Year, wish each other a happy one, etc. but of course it is just a completely arbitrary number and date. The New Year could start on any day in 365, and although 2014 is supposed to relate to the birth of Christ he wasn’t born in December anyway.
It is also illogical to assume that because we’ve started a new cycle of 365 (or 366 in a leap year) days that it will be any better or worse than the last year.
As for changes which occur in fashions, etc. these rarely seem to correlate with the way we number the decades and centuries. For instance, the 19th Century didn’t really end till after the First World War, and 20th Century innovations like the jazz age, flappers, etc. kicked off in the 1920s.
The 1940s culturally went on till well into the 1950s, at least in UK, with rationing, austerity, etc., while the 1950s popular music continued until 1963 with the advent of The Beatles and British long-haired groups.
In fact I’ve noticed that changes in fashions, etc. rarely coincide with a new decade, and usually become apparent about the middle of any decade. Certainly rock’n’roll burst upon the world scene around 1955 although there were many recordings now considered early rock’n’roll in the USA well before that, going back to the late 1940s.
So what lies ahead in 2014? Well much the same as in previous years. I don’t expect anything vastly different, as any changes which occur in human behavior, etc. are very gradual. People will be born, others will pass on, no doubt we’ll have the usual highs and lows.
We were told by many who didn’t think the world was going to end on December 21st 2012, that 2013 was the start of a new era of Enlightenment. I can’t say I’ve noticed, but certainly there is a process of new ideas going on helped to a large extent by the exchange of ideas worldwide thru the Internet.
The old organized religions are slowly giving way to new ideas where science and what was previously regarded as religion or mysticism become confused. Many people are now non-specific about their beliefs. So we hear about some sort of universal consciousness rather than ‘God’ and a widespread belief in spirituality and survival of death, rather than the old idea of Heaven and Hell.
Science is also less clear-cut than it seemed to be, not least because Quantum Physics and things like String Theory seem almost mystical in their implications.
What I do believe is that the 21st Century (according to our current method of recording the passing of time) will be a period of quite revolutionary discoveries in the twin areas of science and what was previously regarded as the domain of religion. Both orthodox science and orthodox religion have to give way to new ideas based on the evidence constantly being uncovered.
However 2014 or any single year will not herald any dramatic change, as these things happen very gradually. New ideas and concepts are rarely accepted overnight, they take years or even longer to gradually become the accepted norm.
Hopefully exposures of corruption, etc. will continue in the next year or so, and more people will become enlightened as to the true nature of things both related to this planet and in the more spiritual aspects.
