Congratulations! You survived 2016

Last updated on: January 1, 2017 at 4:33 pm by Tom Swiss

Congratulations! You survived 2016 2017-01-01T16:33:55-04:00 Tom Swiss

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Congratulations! If you’re reading this, you survived 2016. (I will not be surprised if “I survived 2016” becomes a popular t-shirt slogan this year.)

This collage by British art director Chris Barker of celebrities who didn't survive 2016 by British art director Chris Barker went viral at the end of the year. Barker says he ran out of space. (Image used under fair use provisions.)

This collage by British art director Chris Barker of celebrities who didn’t survive 2016 went viral at the end of the year. Barker says he ran out of space. (Image used under fair use provisions.)

I rung in the new year in a wine bar in Ellicott City, the neighboring town that was largely destroyed by a flash flood last summer. The recovery continues and a few places have reopened, Pure Wine Cafe among them. There were only a handful of people there but it seemed a suitable way to bid farewell to a misbegotten year .

I’ve been thinking recently of an exchange from the Babylon 5 episode “The Parliament of Dreams”. In this episode the various species gathered on the space station are having a cultural exchange, exhibiting their cultures’ religious rituals. The Centauri festival takes the form of a drunken banquet. The Centauri ambassador’s assistant explains,

It’s a celebration of life. It comes from a time in our world’s history when two dominant species were fighting for supremacy: our people and a species we called Xon. At year’s end, we count how many of our people survived and we’d celebrate our good fortune.

The banquet table itself has a number of statues on it, and one of the station’s human officers asks what they are for. The ambassador replies,

Our household gods. In a world where every day is a struggle for survival, you need all the gods you can get.

So celebrate your good fortune. And may you have all the gods you need. (Remember, as the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has taught us, you can always make up more.)

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