At the dawn of this new year, I am about to get sentimental on you.

Or am I?

Yesterday, we had a bit of a downer post about the human condition. Today, same topic, but with hope.

The idea of a lost golden age is found in all sorts of cultures, sometimes in some very strange forms. Some cultures and/or religions also add the hope of a future golden age. Of course, you want to watch out for promises of utopia on earth. They usually go wrong quickly and badly. But, the fact that we cannot bring about this future golden age ourselves, does not make the longing for it an illegitimate pursuit. This longing is the universal human recognition that something is wrong with our present world, with our present selves. It expresses the wish for redemption.

So maybe it’s not sentimental to long for a future golden age in which all tears will be dried, even if the song below is a little bit sentimental its instrumentation, coming as it does out of the late 80s/early 90s, when I was a moony teenager. And (*whispers*) I find this song even more moving now than I did as a teen, perhaps because in the intervening years I have seen even more of this broken world.

Here we go.