2020 was a wonderful, terrible year. First of all, let's talk about the elephant in the room. Death. There was so much death in 2020. About 5 to 10% more compared to the year before. Given that humanity just invented a new, super flexible and rapidly developed vaccine family, maybe 2020, will turn to the year that bumped their life expectancy up a decade. We will see. According to those stats, it seems that 9 out of 10 deaths weren't a 2020 special, but due to the fact that we are getting older and other such human imperfections. I got some losses too and they were of this type. So 2020 wasn't special because of death, but because of fear of death employed by media, governments, companies, science, and what we could call "other people" in order to shape your behavior in a way that was on your advantage. And it worked. The response wasn't exceptional but it was okay. If the so-called "exponentials" the experts warned about, kicked in, 2020 would be a complete disaster.
The Buddha says "Life is Suffering". Another Japanese saying is "Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional" Most of 2020 suffering was human induced. We could avoid most of it. All that was needed was a behavior change. When cars turned fast, people started dying in car accidents. It took a few decades, but we finally got convinced that we shouldn't drink and drive and that we should wear seatbelts. Our super dense cities and increased connectivity, set the scene for a super contagious virus. It turned a whole range of human behaviors to dangerous. As if we were all driving drunk every time we were taking the subway. We understood the rules sufficiently by April. All we were asked to do is the equivalent of stop drinking before driving and wear seatbelts. We just didn't have two decades. We had weeks to learn, and that was the pain. But the suffering?
To turn the health issue into a political issue, make masks a statement, spend months outraged for all sorts of other problems as if we didn't have enough. Disregard obvious solutions in the name of political correctness. Turn all our communication online and no online company have the dignity to say, I won't exploit those people this year with excessive advertising and polarization for fun and profit. Look, in New York. We are still running the mask campaign, outdoors, on the streets with no scientific basis.
"So the thing is there was so much peer pressure and it was so impossible to be out in the street without a mask because I forgot it today. So I went and just bought a new one and now I feel much better."
At the same time one "bro" takes their mask down and talk to another because they're homies, and grannies do that too. And they all meet for Thanksgiving both the young and the older and the sensitive and talk and hug. The superspreaders still chat 200 people a day without masks because they are friendly and cool. At the same time introverts and sensitive, who would chat five people a week are locked in their homes, getting overweight and depressed because they want to be responsible. Most of the misery of 2020 was human induced. It was clueless people in places of authority, rushing to enforce ill decisions, to "protect people". Do you remember in the high-school, when a poor teacher, instead of punishing the troublemaker would lecture and punish the whole class. Do you remember the class suffering and the sociopath troublemaker doubling down on troublemaking since he could enjoy his impact amplified by the poor teacher? That was our 2020 suffering.
It was easier for science to discover a vaccine in one 10th of the time rather than humanity keep their poor teachers accountable. 2021 finds me worried and disappointed with humanity. There is an alarming lack of wisdom, clear thinking, honesty and bravery. My instinctive reaction is to protect myself. To built fences and put everyone I care about in them. In a place where predatory companies, media, and governments and clueless people won't be able to touch. I guess it comes with age. I will do that in 2021 but I hope one day we'll all be free. More free than we were before 2020, before 2008, before 2001. I will keep working on that because more fences sound to me only like a temporary miserable solution.
Thanks for watching and I don't care if you're sharing.
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