Best Wishes for a Self-Referential Redundant New Year

Lunch today is a cheese quesadilla with hot sauce, simply because it's a holiday week and I'm not at work. So for the sake of keeping the sandwich ideas coming I'll start with a description of a lunch I had last week. I've always said I don't like rocket (arugula for American readers) because I can't stand it in salads. But in the past few years I've discovered that rocket actually works in some sandwiches. Since I get these pre-made salad mixtures that always seem to be crowded with rocket (which I've usually just thrown out), I made a sandwich with Wensleydale with a bit of hot mango chutney and then stuffed it with fresh rocket. And you know what? It was delicious! I'll definitely do this again. I know it's good with Stilton, and I'm sure it would be good with Lancashire, Cheshire, Caerphily, and the like.

As today is Boxing Day and I'm being leisurely and reflective (two things I never seem to have the luxury of indulging in these days), I'll start with a realisation I had recently: in the future life will become self-referential. For years we have been reading reviews of what literary critics have read; today we spend leisure time reading and watching what friends are spending their leisure time reading and watching (via Facebook), and we watch TV programs about people watching TV programs (re Charlie Brooker and The Royle Family). It's only a matter of time before we will be watching TV programs about people watching TV programs about people watching TV programs about people watching TV programs ad infinitum. We will play games where we make our own screen avatars play games where they make their own screen avatars play games where etc. And I can see myself falling asleep and dreaming about myself falling asleep and dreaming about myself falling asleep and dreaming about myself falling asleep. I've already come quite close.

As life is becoming more virtual and less literal, why do so many young people -- students especially -- insist on being redundant about the literal world? "I was literally so hungry" means nothing, you idiot -- you were hungry! "I literally couldn't find my keys" means you couldn't find them, period! Nobody expects you to figuratively not find something unless, perhaps, you're writing out an algebraic equation on a chalkboard that symbolise the search for your keys.

I see a day where our completely virtual, figurative, self-referential lives will be explained in doubly redundant literal terms, and all sense of logic will be dumped into an infinite loop. The world as we know it (or watch it or explain it) will explode or implode, or possibly both. I hope I have fresh batteries in my camera when this happens.