2020: A Year in Review

You're welcome, 2020.

For those of us who lived through 2020, it is our sincerest hope that we never encounter another of her like in our lifetimes. Normally, I wouldn't feel comfortable speaking for the entire world, but this is one of the rare cases where things went so terribly sideways, and the citizens of little planet Earth were united by the common desire for something or someone to fuck right off. In this case, it was the entirety of the year 2020.

But as 2020 proved, years aren't bad. People are bad. Not all and not fundamentally, but people are can turn lemons into lemonade or improvised explosives. Sure nature is uncaring and ambivalent, but it takes people to really turn things to shit.

The year 2020 was, of course, dominated by the life-altering effects of the novel coronavirus COVID-19, which evolved into a global pandemic. It not only affected the lives of individuals, it shook the very foundations of our entire civilization. Or, at least, it exposed cracks already forming in the bedrock. Of course, the United States was a prime example of how a basic issue of health and safety could become politicized, but there are similar sociopolitical divisions that were laid bare all over the world.

We already knew that increased levels of stress and anxiety provide a toxic mixture that negatively impacts mental health, corrodes reason, and obstructs otherwise sound decision-making. But seeing it in action on a planetary scale is something else to behold entirely. As lock-downs and stay-at-home orders  were issued in nations the world over in an effort to maximize social distancing and stop the spread of an incredibly deadly virus, social media platforms like Facebook allowed for the large-scale dissemination of increasingly ridiculous conspiracy theories and outright lies and showed us exactly which family members and friends were most likely to break in a police interrogation or be the least help in a zombie apocalypse. 

The Mandalorian: For Every Character There is a Season

Every since Disney bought out Lucasfilm and announced their plans to carry on the Star Wars franchise, I've approached each new installment in the Star Wars story with a mix of trepidation and excitement. Like a junkie, part of me wanted to keep chasing that high I felt from the Original Star Wars Trilogy and the Prequel Trilogy, to recapture that same feeling of wonder and adventure and excitement and strangeness like surprise incest or random '50s-style diners. But the rational part of my brain kept trying to tell me that Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm marked the end of an era, and that the high I was chasing didn't exist, and I should devote my energies to other, more fruitful pursuits, like developing the world's first mass-produced, consumer-grade flamethrower. Unfortunately, Elon Musk beat me to this totally useful and not in any way egregious misuse of humanity's finite resources in a world where people are literally going homeless and dying from easily treatable medical conditions in the richest country in the world, so I guess I'll have to go with Plan B: miniature bidets for cats and dogs.

The Star Wars content that Disney did put out has, for me, been an exercise in diminishing returns. I'm still not completely caught up on the animated shows, but for me, Star Wars has always been about the silver screen experience: the epic storytelling, the larger than life characters and plot, the cheer of the crowd, the crushing of the enemies, seeing them driven before you, and hearing the lamentations of the women. At the time I'm writing this, there've been five Star Wars feature films released under the Disney Regime so far: Episodes VII, VIII, and IX carrying on the main movie storyline, and two spinoffs set between Episodes III and IV of the main series, Solo and Rogue One. Out of those five, Episode VII: The Force Awakens was essentially a soft reboot of Episode IV: A New Hope, Episode VIII: The Last Jedi stands with the best that Star Wars has to offer, Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker keeps getting worse the more I think about it, Solo was a decently fun galactic romp, and Rogue One was the movie equivalent of a couple of kids playing with their toys for a couple of hours.

A Movie a Day Keeps the Boredom Away: A Modern-Day Odyssey

About four months ago, my wife and I sat down to have one of those conversations that every couple dreads. Yes, it had come time once again to take stock of our finances. It wasn't that there was some seismic shift in our life circumstances like the loss of a job, a new child, or an inheritance from long-lost relative in Nigeria (still waiting on that cheque, Prince Abdulla). No, in fact, quite the opposite. Somewhere in between working, raising two kids, and completing an epic binge-watch of twenty seasons of Survivor to prepare for Season 40 which featured a cast of returning winners (#WinnersAtWar) we ended with a few spare moments to contemplate our own little micro-economy. 

We gradually realized, as though awakening from a long slumber and looking around groggily at our surroundings trying to find our bearings, that something was amiss. Things literally did not quite add up. When we actually looked at how much money we were pulling in combined from both our jobs, the number was actually quite a bit higher than we had thought. I know, it's a tough life we lead. It's not like we can retire early or start yacht shopping or anything like that, but we realized that we were getting dangerously close to that middle class sweet spot of achieving a level of income that could finally be described as "comfortable."