QUARTER-LIFE CRISIS

So there goes 2025, and the first quarter of this century. In human terms, the age of twenty-five can bring on a case of quarter-life crisis. You know... a time of doing strange things, making drastic choices and questioning basically everything.

Hmm, that sounds a whole lot like 2025.

For example, if you’re going through a quarter-life crisis (QLC) you might make drastic changes. You know, like smashing down half of your big white house to make way for a giant ballroom - in the process destroying historical buildings, gardens planted by former First Ladies etc etc etc. Then again, a QLC is also about trying new things. So why not build a place for ballroom dancing? Who cares if people say you’re too old to dance?

In fact, QLC is also about discovering that age is just a number. In this year of 2025, both the United Kingdom (in Barking and Dagenham) and New York City got the youngest mayors they’ve ever had. Plus it was the year in which the seventh (I think) Jurassic Park film was released. Just proves that someone somewhere believes that certain things never get old.

By the time you turn twenty-five you might think you’ve seen everything. But that’s where quarter-life can take you by surprise. Like how the French crown jewels were stolen right out of the Louvre. It was a major heist, a mystery to police, and a social media phenomenon partly due to that mysterious guy in the fedora (who turned out to be a super stylish 15-year-old passerby). Weirdest thing of all? It wasn’t even a movie starring Brad Pitt and George Clooney. It. Actually. Happened.

Speaking of what did and didn’t happen, anyone hitting quarter-life could start to question their own sense of reality. 2025 sure did, probably because a fictional girl group called HUNTR/X topped the US Billboard Hot 100. And then there was Tilly Norwood, the AI-generated actress who realised the fears of many thespians. It started to get real when creators said she could actually replace a real actor. Apparently the sales pitch is that, unlike demanding Hollywood actors, Tilly will be no trouble at all.

Right... because technology’s never given us any problems. (That’s sarcasm, Tilly. Can you do sarcasm?)

But hey, it didn’t get completely futuristic and crazy this year. It’s not like we witnessed the World Humanoid Robot Games or anything. Oh wait... we did. But then again, this was also the year that fact-checking was removed from Facebook and Instagram. So who knows what’s real any more?

On the plus side, a QLC can mean new discoveries. Just like this year’s discovery of a formerly unknown pharaoh's tomb - the first tomb to be discovered since 1922. We also witnessed the discovery of the 128 new moons orbiting Saturn.

Okay so all in all, it wasn’t a perfect year. Unless you’re a mathematician, in which case that’s exactly what it was. 2025 was a perfect square - the result of 45 x 45 - and the first “perfect” year the world has seen since 1936.

As we wrap up a year like no other, stay safe and take care of those around you... even the ones created by a microchip.