It is the beginning of a new year. Well, a couple of weeks into it anyway but the shine hasn't had time to wear off yet. While the demarcation is arbitrary it is certainly necessary. You do have to mark a spot between then and now. Otherwise how would we know the difference between them? Right?
For those playing the Home Game, 2008 was not as good a year as I had hoped. In fact, it was likely the worst year of my life so I am not going to rehash those elements. And, in the news we know that this year has been fraught with momentous and truly historic occasions. We've had elections that spoke about the change that came and left America. There have been events that have changed the world here and abroad. People have died, and more were born.
Just perusing the news sites will give you endless columns and articles about the most important people, events, or top ten lists of best this or worst that. Magazine covers will have sexiest man or woman alive for this year and tell us how we can have the best sex of 09 and lose those unwanted pounds.
However, I believe in all the historic hullabaloo they have missed one key detail. One important fact has slipped through the self-appointed, the over-paid, and obsessive society note-takers.
No more state quarters.
No, seriously, they're done. Alaska came out at the end of the year. No more. Finite. Over with. Ended. All 50 are out. A quick review in Google news reveals not one story about this. Not one mention of a decade long project coming to its end. No one bothered to write down that the single largest sustained project by the US Mint has come to an end. And, it ended on time.
And no one talked about it.
For a decade these have been quietly coming out on schedule. No longer will you have to flip through the change in your pocket to see if you've run across the latest issue. Although you probably will out of sheer habit, but there won't be anything new.
Unless you're a slacker and still haven't gotten Alaska.
I can't help but want something from this. Something portentous maybe. Or something that has some value or meaning beyond the act of collecting a certain type of money. Something about the minor act of taking a moment out of my day, every day I got a quarter in change from something, to give it value. Something to show the time was not wasted.
But I can't, really. I now have a small blue folder with roughly $12.50 in it that I will never spend. And, if I die and pass it on to my children they will likely not spend it either. So, it will sit on a book shelf not doing anything.
Or they will have found it when they were 12 and spent it on candy without my knowledge.
A lot of time and consideration was put into this project. Not on my end, but on the Mint's end. Whole state governments were involved, and for a short time people cared about what the quarters meant or showed or said about their state. For a time these quarters were very important to a lot of people.
But now that is over with and who really cares what the quarter from New York says about the state? Or that the Wright brothers appear on two different state quarters?
I want something from this project, and it's not there. My sister in her time in Vietnam handed out the state quarters to the people and students she met there. And I have to wonder if those people still have their quarters? What do they think of them? Do they represent a dream, an idea, are they more than just a alloy of metal stamped from a sheet? What do the people of a poor communist nation think of their piece of America? Their piece of the idea of Money and what it means to them.
Then I think that maybe I think too much. They're just quarters. Things. And I shouldn't place value in a thing. Value resides in the people I know. Value is in the relationships I have with people not in things I own. That I should embrace the Taoist idea of being and doing rather than thinking.
Maybe I should combine the rejection of the material from Nihilism with the Taoist idea of being into a new philosophy of Taohlism. One that rejects the culture of consumerism and ownership and combines it with the Toaist idea of harmony with the universe by being open and true to your own nature.
But then people would probably pronounce it with a T and not a D, and call it Towelism. Then create iconography and open a shop in ebay to sell it. Which bums me out more than the state quarter project being over.
Maybe the real value here is that no one noticed the end of the state quarter program. No one noticed because it really is trivial. That the quarters from Ohio and North Carolina are just two more reasons why I win Trivial Pursuit games and not something to think about. That act of people living and dying has more value, more meaning, than a piece of the idea of money.
So, yeah. We decided when one year ended and another one began. People lived. People died. The world changed how it was organized. And we talked about that. Some people were more sexy this time than they were last time. Magazines organized what was good and bad about it all for us. Something ended, quietly, and we did not talk about it.
And that's okay.
For those playing the Home Game, 2008 was not as good a year as I had hoped. In fact, it was likely the worst year of my life so I am not going to rehash those elements. And, in the news we know that this year has been fraught with momentous and truly historic occasions. We've had elections that spoke about the change that came and left America. There have been events that have changed the world here and abroad. People have died, and more were born.
Just perusing the news sites will give you endless columns and articles about the most important people, events, or top ten lists of best this or worst that. Magazine covers will have sexiest man or woman alive for this year and tell us how we can have the best sex of 09 and lose those unwanted pounds.
However, I believe in all the historic hullabaloo they have missed one key detail. One important fact has slipped through the self-appointed, the over-paid, and obsessive society note-takers.
No more state quarters.
No, seriously, they're done. Alaska came out at the end of the year. No more. Finite. Over with. Ended. All 50 are out. A quick review in Google news reveals not one story about this. Not one mention of a decade long project coming to its end. No one bothered to write down that the single largest sustained project by the US Mint has come to an end. And, it ended on time.
And no one talked about it.
For a decade these have been quietly coming out on schedule. No longer will you have to flip through the change in your pocket to see if you've run across the latest issue. Although you probably will out of sheer habit, but there won't be anything new.
Unless you're a slacker and still haven't gotten Alaska.
I can't help but want something from this. Something portentous maybe. Or something that has some value or meaning beyond the act of collecting a certain type of money. Something about the minor act of taking a moment out of my day, every day I got a quarter in change from something, to give it value. Something to show the time was not wasted.
But I can't, really. I now have a small blue folder with roughly $12.50 in it that I will never spend. And, if I die and pass it on to my children they will likely not spend it either. So, it will sit on a book shelf not doing anything.
Or they will have found it when they were 12 and spent it on candy without my knowledge.
A lot of time and consideration was put into this project. Not on my end, but on the Mint's end. Whole state governments were involved, and for a short time people cared about what the quarters meant or showed or said about their state. For a time these quarters were very important to a lot of people.
But now that is over with and who really cares what the quarter from New York says about the state? Or that the Wright brothers appear on two different state quarters?
I want something from this project, and it's not there. My sister in her time in Vietnam handed out the state quarters to the people and students she met there. And I have to wonder if those people still have their quarters? What do they think of them? Do they represent a dream, an idea, are they more than just a alloy of metal stamped from a sheet? What do the people of a poor communist nation think of their piece of America? Their piece of the idea of Money and what it means to them.
Then I think that maybe I think too much. They're just quarters. Things. And I shouldn't place value in a thing. Value resides in the people I know. Value is in the relationships I have with people not in things I own. That I should embrace the Taoist idea of being and doing rather than thinking.
Maybe I should combine the rejection of the material from Nihilism with the Taoist idea of being into a new philosophy of Taohlism. One that rejects the culture of consumerism and ownership and combines it with the Toaist idea of harmony with the universe by being open and true to your own nature.
But then people would probably pronounce it with a T and not a D, and call it Towelism. Then create iconography and open a shop in ebay to sell it. Which bums me out more than the state quarter project being over.
Maybe the real value here is that no one noticed the end of the state quarter program. No one noticed because it really is trivial. That the quarters from Ohio and North Carolina are just two more reasons why I win Trivial Pursuit games and not something to think about. That act of people living and dying has more value, more meaning, than a piece of the idea of money.
So, yeah. We decided when one year ended and another one began. People lived. People died. The world changed how it was organized. And we talked about that. Some people were more sexy this time than they were last time. Magazines organized what was good and bad about it all for us. Something ended, quietly, and we did not talk about it.
And that's okay.
