Say not Goodbye, but Hello!
Historically, I review the past 364 days at the end of the year. I’ve decided not to do that this year, for a variety of reasons, starting with being high as a kite on cold medicine right now. I probably couldn’t name all the weeks days months whatever of the year right now anyway, much less get them in the right order. 2014 wasn’t a bad year, as they go, but it wasn’t all it could have been, and so I think it’s time better spent to look forward to how awesome 2015 can be.
As Banksy reminds us, as of tomorrow, we will be as close to the year 2030 as we are to the year 2000. Since I have vivid memories of a great little show called “Space: 1999” this strikes close to home for me. By 2030, we should be permanently on the Moon, with at least a research station on the way to Mars. We were promised flying cars by this point – I think there is a company working on this, perhaps more than one. By 2030, we should have them. By we, of course, I mean the affluent 5% of the more than 8.3 billion people who will be clawing for their share of the Earth’s increasingly finite resources by then, unless the next wave of Ebola takes care of us first. I myself will be more than 60 years old, and no closer to retirement than I am now, but that’s OK.
On the plus side, in the next 15 years, we have real opportunities to accomplish and achieve things that were just as “Sci-Fi” as flying cars were when I was young. We may let the blind see, the deaf hear. We have not “put a stopper in death,” nor can we ever – nor should we – but we may slow it to a trickle, putting the stopper in senescence until we’re ready to pull the plug ourselves. When you combine the magic of stem cells with the magic of 3D printers, there is probably a limit to what we can do, but it’s not a limit I can imagine right now. Mind you, that may be the cold medicine talking.
Speaking of cold medicines, my good friend Dr. Hartley at Musings on Infection has postulated an International Geophysical Year for medicine; an International Biomedical Year. I told suggested that we target the year 2020 for the IBY – these things take time to set up. With that in mind, let’s make 2015 “The Year We Got Ready.”
And so, without further ado, I will thank you all for sticking with me this year, and I wish you all, dear friends, fond relations, and Gentle Readers, a happy, safe, prosperous, invigorating, enlightening, and educational new year. Come on, 2015. Show us what you’ve got!
Happy New Year, BUMD – hope you feel better soon!