Author: Jonathan Szeto

When I was finishing college in the early 90s, one of the trends that was starting to go viral back then was the concept of fractals. Although the term had been invented in the 70s by the mathematician Benoît Mandelbrot, it didn’t really take off in the public consciousness until about twenty years later, due in no small part to computer-generated graphics of the Mandelbrot set. Something about psychedelic imagery of Mandelbrot sets really clicked with the zeitgeist back then (largely thanks to boomers coming into their ascendancy and reliving some of their highlights from the 60s).

Back in the 90s, while I was still on active duty, I joined a Compuserve online forum for active and veteran military members. I remember a post by an Air Force captain retelling an incident that happened in the skies over Iraq during Operation: Desert Storm.

This occurred during the initial combat missions while the Coalition Forces were establishing air supremacy. On one mission, the captain was flight commander for about half a dozen fighters. They were flying above the clouds when his wingman reported a radar contact underneath the clouds. The IFF (Identify Friend or Foe) transponders did not indicate that these were friendly planes, so his wingman recommended attacking (which, under the rules of engagement at that phase, was the correct response).

Something about the whole thing felt off to the captain. He instructed the flight to wait for visual confirmation.

For most people, 2021 will be remembered as 1 PC (post-COVID). Some people have spent this year resigning themselves to the New Normal. Others have been struggling to return to the Old Normal, life before social distancing, masks, and vaccines.

For me, however, 2021 was the watershed for the New Old Normal.

In this year that’s just ending, I left Kentucky, the place I had been living for half my lifetime, and moved back to New Hampshire, my childhood home. Since announcing my departure back in August, many people have asked what made me decide to leave. The answer I gave was simply, “After COVID, I decided it was time to come home.”

This works fine for small talk over cocktails. But much like the rest of 2021, the truth is much more complicated.