This has been yet another annus horribilis. Starting with Boxing Day 2004, Mother Nature has shown us, lest we forget, who’s in charge. From earthquakes to tsunamis to hurricanes and floods; we look weak and our responses have been inadequate on every level.

Our bodies politic have been shaken to the core. Don’t feel that it’s just your system that’s in turmoil: institutions everywhere have been tested and found wanting.

Our faith in those who would lead us has been shaken to the core. Those in power abuse those fragile rights that we, the governed, have always been told are inalienable. Those out of power seem unable to find their way out of the desert. Their voices are discordant when they need to speak as one.

So, where does that leave us? If we have seen the enemy and he is us; then we need to look inward for the answer to what ails us. The human experiment evolves, but it’s based on one basic premise: we must care for one another to survive.

Hobbes said that we must make sacrifices to live inside the leviathan. We give up those freedoms to do as we wish in order that our lives will not be, “short, nasty and brutish.” We can live out our existences inside the leviathan because we are inside. But in order for the experiment to work, we can’t atomize ourselves: e pluribus Unum. And that whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Here’s to the good ship of state and all those sail in her. May the seas be calm in her wake. May the wind fill her sails. May the setting sun see her safely home.