And good riddance. I’m going to say something rather controversial here so I hope I don’t scare you off from reading the rest of this post. I really worry that it wasn’t the year that was bad, but that it’s us, and we’re on a path down a bad road if we don’t change our behavior. One could probably say that there was a bit of bad luck involved in this year because no one planned Covid19 BUT our inability to react to it properly was absolutely on us. I don’t believe that our society is currently set up to handle big systemic problems like this, especially here in the U.S., and I find it very likely that if we don’t learn how to think as a unit when it’s called for then it is only a matter of time before an even bigger systemic problem comes knocking at our door, and this time instead of that “measly 1% death rate”…. it’s going to be more like a very potential extinction event. Can someone say global warming?
Let’s not forget that Covid was just one of the problems with this year. We also had horrific displays of police brutality (not like we didn’t have that before), riots that ensued because of said brutality, and quite an economic crash caused by absolute garbage leadership. None of these things are tied to being the luck of the draw of what this year gave us, they are all simply manifestations of a bad system that we live in. We don’t live in a society built around helping people, therefore it couldn’t handle a pandemic well and just brought more wealth inequality. We don’t live in a society that is determined to undo the wrongs of our very racist history and therefore we got to see some of the worst implications of that. I really fear and honestly believe that we aren’t just going to be able to “ride this one out.” We have to actually try to fix the things causing these problems.
Ok, I will admit that while 2020’s problems are all tied our system’s faults, they did kind of all hit at the same time. I do hope we get a little room to breathe and thankfully with Biden as our president we won’t have to deal with that stupid cult of personality for at least four more years. I hate to admit this but I don’t think Biden will be anything more than a trip right back into the status quo, but that is at least marginally better than complete insanity. As for the concept of whether or not a new year can inherently bring any sort of change all on it’s own, I think it’s possible that they do but not through some grandiose cosmological force. The best case I can make for things changing on January 1st from December 31st is that if most people believe that things will change, the placebo effect will cause they themselves to act differently. When enough people do this, the world does in fact change.
WOOT Last post of 2020, couldn’t come soon enough. I’m hopeful for change because I think more and more people are being put in situations where they can no longer ignore the systemic problems that face us. I’m going to do my part and NEVER shut up about said problems because complacency kills just as fast as malice. I hope you can forgive me for this joke but I’ll talk to you next year. 😛 Love everybody. <3….. Except you Mitch Mccollnell, you suck.
Steven Wilhelm 