The fiddlers are getting everyone’s feet moving and tapping to the tune of “Soldier’s Joy”, one of my all-time favourite reels. The stalwart fiddler of the old days has been replaced by a stoic-faced musician with only his foot keeping time, a loud rhythm guitar and a booming bass to keep everything tightly paced.
Today’s young dancers are an impressive bunch, and everyone seems to be synchronized to the newest addition to the band, the electronic drummer. Other than those slight changes, the traditional square dance remains basically the same – play and dance all night. Oh yeah, these days dances are smoke-free events so there’s no chance of inhaling second-hand smoke.
As the Christmas holidays came to an end after two weeks of merriment and New Year’s cheers, the only real downfall was that the temperatures remained unseasonably high with no danger of frost to bite your nose. It was only a few days before this new year that we had enough snow to keep the snowmobile afloat and speeding around without bashing into tree stumps and fire hydrants.
The end of this millennium’s first quarter slipped by so quickly and quietly, save for a few wars to interrupt global peace. I wonder if time is just speeding up or life in general is getting compressed to the point where age is measured by the decade. The newly grey-haired people born in the early 1990s can already feel the need to act young until youth becomes an outdated fad.
Soon the ancients, like me, will be called upon to save the digital network. We will be the ones rewriting the code to open the matrix. Not to mention to correct the fixes that artificial intelligence entities will have imposed on human flaws with smooth skin and incorrect speech or thoughts.
Most human responses are made with grunts or facial expressions. Soon, anyone who isn’t perfectly corrected by artificial intelligence will stand out in the crowd as vocally and facially challenged. The monosyllabic answer will require at least a breath and a half to spit out and anyone colloquially inadequate will suffer the speaker’s worst nightmare – the loss of words. Oh the horror, not being able to speak without eloquence and anyone around dumb enough not to notice.
Other than those peeves, I’ve decided to stick to one resolution this year and that is not to complain about the complainers who complain about people who complain a lot. I’ll just not complain about anything, which is the complete opposite of my usual self, complaining about anything and everything. I shall be at peace with my empty complaint box.
Hopefully this new year will take its time. The years go by too swiftly and silently and age just seems to show up as quickly as rust on an un-oiled machine that has fallen out of favour with the new times. Why two stroke it when you can four stroke it? Or terabyte that file instead of that measly gigabyte limitation of last year. Yes, just upgrade your profile and no one will ever know the real you. So are the times these days.