Day 24 – Advent Ventures

Here at the end of megayears of human adventure,
we schedule a silent night to stop time,
once again awaiting the next advent
of the answer to our questionable venture.

    Are we there yet?

After a gigayear or so of slogging from slime to silicon
mercifully forgetting (most of) the unmerciful past,
and the scars left by unnatural nature upon our pedigree,
we now remember to remember the future once more.

    Are we there yet?

So in this month, 26 year-moments after the advent of Perl,
(including 13 year-eternities of precocious brat sisterhood)
our little family celebrates, 24 tales at a time,
its victories in the struggle to find our way home.

    Are we there yet, Daddy, are we there yet?

We follow after all those who wander but are not lost:
We follow Abraham, looking for a city because it isn't there yet;
We follow Strider, guarding the hobbits who will redistribute the future;
We follow Magi and wizard, scholar and explorer, saint and scientist.

    I wonder as I wander out under the sky...whether I'm lost yet...

But wise man or hobbit, we must all take that journey in the dark,
groping ahead for the path to better air and a little hope,
following the encapsulated starlight past monsters and chasms
out to a land where the weary can rest, and be healed of grief.

    "Wait, what do you mean, I can't go there?" —Gandalf

We must all wander in this desert for forty years,
burying the bones of naysayers and yaysayers alike,
so that their children can someday cross the Jordan
into a land flowing with milk and honey and fancy new phones!

    "Wait, what do you mean, I can't go there?" —Moses

We carry these old stories to the future,
cadences to chant over the confusion of the road,
backpacks full of epics, pockets stuffed with tales,
leaving our own litter of anecdotal evidence behind us.

    You haven't heard some of the good ones yet.

So kids, along with the old stories, pack a few new tools,
light but powerful tools that will help you and help you help us.
The lightest tools, the most powerful tools, are ideas,
so pack lots and lots of 'em. I'll wait here while you do.

    I'm here yet. Which means I'm not there yet. Hurry up!

Pick some good friends, and let some good friends pick you.
Take turns waiting patiently, running impatiently,
or walking hopefully, crawling hopelessly,
standing up yet again defiantly. Or woozily, that works too.

    Be the protagonist some of the time, yet not all of the time.

Trust your journey to provide you with new companions;
trust your new companions to provide you with your journey.
Be prepared to say your eternal hellos and temporary goodbyes.
(No one's ever ready for the temporary hellos and eternal goodbyes.)

    And I'm not sure I want to be there quite yet.

Enjoy the companions your journey gives today, for life is bittersweet.
Enjoy the bittersweet songs and the bittersweet beer.
Enjoy the bitter fights and sweet hugs.
And, yes, enjoy the resulting bruises, but not too much.

    Enjoy knowing that you're not there yet.

Welcome, my friends, to the here, and to the not-there-yet.
Welcome to the clan's quantum superposition of joy and grief and longing.
Welcome to our ongoing effort to steal more of that Promethean fire
that burns too fast yet never fast enough to fit the firepits of our lives.

    Are we getting warmer yet?

As they say, "Give a man a fire..." Hold that thought, some breaking news...
This just in: Fire from heaven is now free and open-sourced?! Well, huh...
Seems a blogger heard some angels singing popup advent adverts in the cloud?
Hmm...better do some fact checking...hang in there...tum tiddly tum...

    Darn flakey connection...almost there...

Well, hey, whaddya know?! The physicists figured it out.
The whole universe has just finished compiling without error...
Now they're looking for someone to debug the silly thing;
Hey, I know, I'll just use the Perl 6 test suite.

    [...now you have thousands of problems...]

Did you say something?

    (louder) Does sanity test #1 pass yet? What's the output?

The road goes ever on and on,
Over the river and through the woods,
You take the high road, and I'll take the low road,
We're all bound for the Promised Land.

[TimToady gets blessed and starts directing the choir of Perl Pilgrims.]
We're marching to Zion,
Beautiful, beautiful Zion,
We're marching upward to Zion, that beautif—

    You can't go there.

Wait, what do you mean, I can't go there?

    Bugfix #1: kill all the bad poets.

Aw...crap...