This has been one of those momentous years. Change has been the watchword not just for me but for many people I know.
My parents completed 50 years of marriage.
Ross finished his degree and appeared as the key prosecution witness in a trial.
Chris changed job, ended his relationship with Gavin and moved house.
Chris simply changed job.
Gill gave up a career and went freelance.
Robert started College and prepared to leave the parental home.
James also got a new job and moved into a new flat.
Within that context, my changes of job, house and region seem to be part of the general pattern of flux. This final posting of the year is number 117. It marks by far and away the greatest number of individual postings for any of the five years that I've been writing this Journal. It just goes to show how much I have had to report to you. Next year, I hope, will bring with it a time of consolidation for us all.
Before we leave the year 2000, I'd like to throw out some broader speculations. We're in the 21st Century now. I remember how far away that felt when I was a teenager. Thunderbirds was produced by 21st Century Entertainments Inc.
And I suppose, if we are to make progress in this new century, we shall have to leave the 20th Century behind. And to do that, it feels to me that we shall have to come to terms with the 18th Century.
For all of its advances, the 20th Century remained intellectually so much in the shadow of the 19th Century. Marx, Freud, Einstein. Victorian morality. In reaction, the journey through the 20th Century seems to me to have been one of dismantling rules and associations. But you can only do that when there are commonly agreed rules (whether they are of morality, perspective, tonality, community, colour) that you can break. The 18th Century understood the need for structure in the form of rules that can be played with to suit circumstances. I think we shall see a return over the next 50 years to more formal structures in all areas of life.
And by mid-21st Century, I feel that we shall also look back on the 20th Century and wonder about two of its key obsessions - speed and choice.
Why have we equated fast with good? What have we done with all that time we saved by making things go faster? How we counted the cost of going so fast? Might we not travel less in haste and more for the joy of the journey? And maybe the Communications and Information Technology industries will have its role to play in reducing the amount of travel that is felt to be necessary.
And why do we need so many choices of everything? 60 channels of television but, of course, I can't choose the ones that I want only the ones that are on offer in the packages that other people determine. Tee-shirts in every conceivable hue. Videos offering the capability of recording up to 28 different programmes (on a four hour tape?). Washing machines that can deliver 20 different cycles of wash. A dozen varieties of lettuce available throughout the year. Web access on your mobile phone but it's a phone - why not ring for your pizza? And what of the cost once more? Are we happier for having so many things to choose between?