Meeting the moment in the new year.
As we all return from hopefully a restful holiday season, I start 2026 with a nod to the seasonal. In A Christmas Carol, three spirits visit Ebeneezer Scrooge. The Ghosts of Christmas Past and Present are quite loquacious. But the third spirit—the Ghost of Christmas Future—says nothing. It shows Scrooge possibilities, a vision of his fate if he does not change his miserly ways, but it keeps its own counsel about what will ultimately be. Scrooge asks, “Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?” The ghost says nothing.
It is the start of a new year, and we face the same unknowability. We look to the future, wondering what 2026 holds. We try making predictions, as some years seems possible. In January 2024, for example, we could reasonably expect the year to be dominated by the American presidential election, and it was. Other years, however, events are a right hook coming out of nowhere. We thought we had some sense of the future in January 2020, then a pandemic came and knocked us off our feet. We spent the years since getting, sometimes unsteadily, back up. We learned much from the COVID moment; nothing more so, perhaps, than that the future always reserves the right to defy augury. We might do well to remember this.
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