Are We There Yet?
By Jeff Baker
The year is zipping to a close. Are we better off now than we were a year ago? Are things less hectic or at least horrifying than they were in December Twenty-Twenty?
Plague? Check.
Political unrest? Check.
Genial acceptance of medical misinformation? Check.
Yeah, there’s a lot of pessimism in this darkest time of the year, but there is room for optimism too. If you want symbolism, look no further than the sky.
This is being written in Kansas in the second week of December. The Winter Solstice is a couple of weeks away, but the earliest sunsets of the year are happening right now. Darkness is being followed by light.
In the schools where teachers are being forbidden or frightened from teaching about social issues like racism, white supremacy and civil rights some of the kids are taking the initiative and researching and learning on their own.
The publishing world is changing but people are still reading and writing and buying books and magazines, even as the exact composition of a “book” and “magazine” are changing in the digital era.
As I write this yet another country, Chile, has approved Marriage Equality.
There is uncertainty to be sure, but the certainty is that whatever happens the LGBT community will not be silent. There is reason for optimism. Life is vastly different for this community than it was in the 1990s or ‘80s or 70s.
There is reason for optimism as sure as the stars are in the sky
Jeff Baker’s fiction has appeared in “The Necronomicon of Solar Pons” among other places, and has been reprinted (as Mike Mayak) in “Swamp Life or How I Spent My Summer Vacation” from Puppycat Press. He blogs about reading and writing sci-fi, fantasy and horror around the thirteenth of each month in this same space. He lives happily with his husband Darryl, and they wish all the readers the best of Christmas, the Holidays and the New Year. Jeff regularly posts fiction on his bloghttps://authorjeffbaker.com/ and wastes time on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Jeff-Baker-Author-176267409096907