Old Timer

I just realized that something about my sense of time has changed.

I wanted a simple little countdown timer, so I wrote a little script where you enter the name of the event, and when it's going to happen. Then it displays how long until the event will occur.

While I was testing that the timer works correctly, I needed to think of an event a few years from now. Oddly enough, nothing at all came to mind.

Can you think of some really big upcoming event? I can't.

This seemed really strange to me, it seemed like most of my life there always has been some big important date in the future. But it's gone, replaced by an empty list.

After a moment or two, I realized what it was: the turn of the century, the turn of the millennium. Most of my life that date has been "off in the future", but now it's passed. And there is nothing to take its place. It's all wide open now.

©2004 by Bill Grundmann