Jeremy C Kester

All over the internet, news media, and on the lips of people around the globe, 2020 sucked. But did it? Was it really so bad or is it that our perceptions have been twisted up in all of this mayhem?

This past year of 2020 has been a challenge in many ways. With the pandemic of COVID-19/SARS-2, many of the systems around the world have been tested to the breaking point. In fact, I’d argue that most of them did—in fact— break. They did so in glorious fashion. “Leaders” and politicians alike all stumbled over the decision making process on how to proceed only to then further their deception and cowardice when they realize that either the panic was unwarranted or the decisions they made were wrong. Don’t get me wrong, the virus is dangerous and has and will kill many many people, but there is plenty of evidence out there to wonder if the reaction has been overblown. I am not here to really debate the intricacies of the response to the pandemic though, but the response has been part of the poison, part of the reason that 2020 has sucked so bad.

How much poison are we willing to drink to cure the disease? I think of it not all that unlike chemotherapy for cancer.

We’ve undergone a seemingly never-ending lock-down or succession of lock-downs. We’ve been told to avoid contact with anyone — including our friends and loved ones — as though a Zoom or Facetime call is enough. Hospitals don’t allow family to see those who’re suffering there, for COVID and non-COVID ailments. But we need people; we need each other. God, we need each other. We need touch. A kiss; a hug; a handshake. And while we were willing to forgo this human necessity for a short while to, as they say, “flatten the curve”, how long is it?

And we all get both sides. We don’t want people to die; we want things to get back to normal.

Still, there was a whole host of crazy things that happened during the year to compound the suck:

Wildfires (Australia and California), far too many cases of police brutality — many of which appeared racially motivated, UFO encounters became public, news outlets continually lied and misrepresented information (and honestly they didn’t need to), shortages on necessities were widespread, protests, unrest, threats of war, etc, etc, etc. There’s a lot going on. And it appears like a lot more than goes on any other year.

Years are but dates assigned to a point in time. And time forever marches forward. Unless we make the concerted efforts, 2021 will end up the same as 2020.

But 2020 wasn’t so bad. Bad things happened, yes. Perception can be shifted to look at the shit-show of 2020 a little different.

2020 exposed much. It exposed cracks in many infrastructures. It pointed us toward the lies and deceptions many have been telling in order to remain in power. And we are seeing the lengths that people take to keep up with those lies.

We also learned how much we need the company of others, how much we need people. We’ve begun to understand the importance of work — no matter what the government defines as “essential”. We are learning that social media is both a blessing and a curse — that we need it as much as we need to be rid of it. And we learned of the ingenuity of people in how they’ve been able to turn what is a bad situation into an opportunity.

Either way, 2020 can be a blessing if we consider it. And while 2021 is starting out as nothing more than a continuation of that damned year we thought we just escaped from. But we can change that. We have the opportunity to make it better. And we should try.