In Interesting Times

To say (or write, for that matter) that 'we live in interesting times' (and to point out, that this saying originated as a curseas we are told) has become rather clich.That is worrisome.After all, for something to become clich, it needs to be overused to an extent that dulls a once-cherished originality.And, indeed, to assume that the phrase is overused (just as similar phrases are) is not far-fetched: It hardly qualifies as news any longer that we experience some difficulties (politically, economicallythat is: if you want to separate the two -, sociallythat is: if you want to separate the three, and culturallythat is: if you want to separate the four) at the moment (for quite some time, in fact); difficulties that do render the times we live in 'interesting' and to point that out clich.Of course: 'we', as 'we' know, is a 'difficult' (not to say: 'interesting') concept in its own right, but this may not be the place to go into that.Perhaps, 'we''d better proceed, based on an intuitive approximation to communality than going down this welltrodden path; an approximation that would allow us to righteously emphasize that 'we' (well beyond the Western hemisphere) were promised so much (and, thus, feltmaybe even still feelentitled to so much) only a couple of decades ago: history coming to an end (sure enough: there were nuances to that for those who had actually read Fukuyama), making way for an age of peace (as we have always dreamed of), stability (as we have regularly desired), prosperity (as we have never known), freedom (as we have often imagined), and self-complacency (as we have never dared to wish for openly).Instead of that promise being kept, what we got was the 21st century (to be fair: we got the 1990sa decade that, save for its questionable tastes in fashion and musicindeed gave a glimpse of how it would feel if this promise was fulfilledat least for some people in some places).And now that a quarter of this century has passed, even (then again, maybe: in particular!) selfcomplacency seems like a pipe dream.