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Just what was 2022? Like many years that came before it, 2022 was also a year. But 2022 was different in that it was new. Many experts say 2022 was the newest year thus far. The years that came before 2022 – and this goes for all of the years – were old. They came and went. But 2022 seems to really be hanging around, here and now. It’s almost like 2022 is happening right-this-second. Whereas, other, older years seem to be a thing of the past. On the other hand, 2022 seems really au courant.
Many journalists like to look back at things that happened in the year and assess. In 2022, This thing that happened was good; this other thing that happened was bad. But I think that kind of retrospective is nitpicking. It’s just a very micro point of view. I think there’s value in putting all the things together and assessing value to the whole, you know, the whole enchilada.
Of course, it’s challenging to review the year as a whole. How much value do you give to this or that? Well, I do it with math. The math I use weights things exactly the right weight and gives me back a number that is the total, perfect, and exact critique of 2022.
So, thinking back to all things 2022, the ups, the downs, the rough, the smooth, the scintillating, the ho-hum, the cool, the faux pas, the extravagant, the mundane, the births, the deaths, the ordinary, the extraordinary, and, of course, the fish…
Yes, 2022, taken in total, was a six.
Some may say: Six?! On scale from one to ten?! Look, people. I never said it was on a scale from one to ten. I just said 2022 was a six. Yes, but how did you get to that number? Look, people. I know you’re excited. I know six is an exciting number. But as I said, I used math. There’s addition, subtraction, (Though I don’t know what that’s for), and, of course, division. It’s all right here on this cocktail napkin. I used both sides. I’ve even checked it (No, not twice. That seems like overkill.) and the numbers are all quite correct. What numbers? Can we see your math? No, you may not. The math I use is proprietary. In fact, the fact that I’m doing math at all is exactly the reason I’m writing this column and you’re reading it.
The better question you should be asking is: Just what does “six” tell us about 2022?
Well, first of all the number six tells us that 2022 is not seven. Seven is something else entirely, a completely different number that perhaps belongs to a completely different year. Another thing we can deduce from six is that 2022 is not five. Again, five is another number altogether that my friends at MIT tell me is indeed not six.
In an effort to better understand six, let’s very, very briefly dive down to the shallow end of 2022 and have peek.
2022 was full of events. All kinds of events. Some events were sporting. Athletic, competitive, worthy sports. And there was also pickleball. 2022 in the Arts was high art and low art. And someone tried to sell you an NFT. There was money in 2022. Many dollars ebbed and flowed in the market. And many different parties in crypto made trillions, (yes, illions with a “t”) abracadabra, disappear. In 2022, many people made jokes. Some made good jokes, others made not so good jokes. And others played pickleball. 2022 also had politics. There was team blue, team red, with players ranging from savvy to ordinary. And then there was Hershel Walker. In celebrity news, people still like celebrities because they’re famous. In the tech sphere, a couple of the richest and, so we thought, the smartest guys in the room inadvertently revealed they’re just making this stuff up. But mostly in 2022, people did a lot of talking. The people who were not talking were waiting for their turn to talk. And, though no one knows why, a very, very small number of people were actually listening.
Yes siree, Bob, 2022 was indeed a year. And, everyone agrees, of all the years, 2022 was the most recent. 2022 was full of days and weeks and months and, occasionally, for some inexplicable reason, pickleball. Maybe next year we’ll do better.
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