And 2020 was definitely a year that should be stripped from the history books. The question is, will we remember the things we need to remember?
I tend to doubt it.
As much as I love Christmas, I have come to hate New Year’s Eve – primarily because I am at that age where I am spending it at home. Especially this year since going out into a crowd can be considered a suicidal act. So I got to sit on my back porch and watch the fireworks down below and have the S.O. nag me for wanting to get really fired up as I still think New Year’s Eve is a perfect occasion for doing so.
I had thought of doing one of those “end of year posts”, but then the opportunity to play golf presented itself and I took it. As I said at the opening, I think the less said about this miserable year the better.
As is my custom, however, I did do some personal stock-taking and thoughts about goals for this coming year. I am extremely grateful that for me, 2020 was a stable year, even if I was not in my desired location. I got paid, I had a roof over my head, and groceries and beer in my refrigerator. That’s more than many people had – and when you consider the tragic loss of life worldwide – I think it’s important to be grateful when life allows you stability.
I have some desires for the New Year as I think everyone does. First is health, I prayed for continued health especially as I will be due for some of those “life check-up events” this year. I prayed for an end to the COVID epidemic and that the vaccines will be distributed safely and soon. I prayed for a return to normal in the world and a return to travel. A world without travel is just too rotten to imagine. Especially when I read this little tidbit.
The WSJ’s Scott McCartney estimates 19%–36% of business travel will permanently vanish (largely accounted for by intra-company meetings and training going virtual). Bill Gates thinks more than 50% of company trips will never come back.
A job without travel is just a job. Fuck that. During my time in Germany, I loved my trips to Israel and look forward to returning there hopefully to do some more exploring and continued learning of Hebrew. I was lucky enough to get to go to Japan in 2020 – but my planned trips to New Zealand, Singapore, and Bangkok never materialized. From my perspective that was opportunity and time wasted all because the world placed profit over people. and so the virus spread. ( I was two days away from getting on a plane to New Zealand when the travel ban came into place. Can’t help but think what it would have been like if I had been stuck in New Zealand “telecommuting” to work.)
Timing, as they say, is everything.
For 2021, I am hoping for the best, and fearing for the worst. There are still so many things I want to see and do. I lost my father in August and it crushed my spirit. He was just 4 months of making to 100 years old. My father was a great man and he is the reason for ANY success I have had in life. He certainly did not get the recompense he was owed by his children although I had seen him in the years at least three times a year.
I hope for 2021 we can correct the wreckage of the last four years. Trump has to be removed and as of today, he is still the whining sack of excrement he always has been. I will feel much relieved when Biden takes the oath and the courts are free to indict him and his tawdry family members. The bad news is that 74 million people were just fine with fascism. Charles Pierce, my favorite political writer, summed that tragedy up well.
Anyway, many of us made it. Far too many of us didn’t. The republic, battered and threadbare, made it barely. Almost half of our fellow citizens looked back at four calamitous years and said, Yes, we would like four more years of that. In 1968, even at its worst, even in the days when, one day after another, leaders were murdered here and democracy was crushed in Prague and Nixon, of all people, was elected President of the United States, there was some sense of forward movement. Hell, LBJ actually got a gun-control bill passed that October, and he was the lamest duck since James Buchanan at that point. I am writing this 11 hours before 2021 arrives, and dammit, I’m not taking anything for granted until the ball drops. I don’t know why the president* is blowing off New Year’s Eve at Mar-a-Lago and returning to Washington, but I feel safe in assuming that nothing good can come of this development.
There’s a lot of work there and so much rubble to clear away, and the pandemic has revealed that Americans are just too selfish to work for the common good anymore. And of course, some true enemies of the Republic remain in positions they have no business holding. Mitch McConnell needs to be drawn and quartered.
But we have to have hope. And so I shall.
And since it’s New Years Day I will close with the traditional New Years Greeting in Japan ( translated).
Congratulations on the New Year. In this year too, please favor me.
Happy New Year.