The One and Only Reflection on 2020 You Need

Have you ever walked into a party with a group of friends, and that group of friends just won't stop talking about something that had happened at the same party that's held every year, and they haven't stopped talking about this insane, radical thing that happened, well, a year ago?

Of course, 9 times out of 10, you find yourself thinking, it's something that, for as unbelievable as it might seem, was rather pedestrian in the grand scope of Things That Actually (Seemingly) Matter; it's soooooo crazy that James Roberts decided to engage your friend Thane Daniels in a drunken footrace, only to have them both trip, splay out on the pavement outside of the apartments and quickly arrested for public intoxication. Now, there were the fines, court appearances, and general disruption applied to both their lives and yours, but, generally, in the wider scope of a year, you manage to compartmentalize it in that neat little niche of Things That Best Ought To Be Forgotten Yet Occasionally Laughed At In Retrospect because, well...it was kind of funny watching James eating shit on the pavement.

Then you come across a year like 2020 and that entire concept goes out the fucking window.

Nothing can be taken for granted now; from the sweet, ambrosial nectar of toilet paper that you *absolutely did not steal* from your campus bathroom (hint: you absolutely did do that if you are/were in college by the time you're reading this, and if you had already graduated college, you're not fooling anybody. You stole it from somewhere.), to the very survival of your grandparents, neighbors, and possibly yourself, it was a year that re-contextualized so much in such a short span of time that it surely can't lead to more trauma, alienation and distrust in other people, right?

Right?

...

Right?

A little over a year ago, after having the second half of my last semester in undergrad shifted entirely online, and being thus delegated to living out the coming weeks and months from the confines of my rented house with the remaining roommates that had decided to stay in town along with my girlfriend, we went into a self-imposed quarantine and went on Zoom through all of our classes.

If you haven't lived your quarantine under a rock or, in similar fashion, been locked in the ideological online and media echo chamber of Fox News, One America News Network or heeded the word of your QAnon neighbors, you pretty much know the rest of the story. I sometimes would go days without knowing what day it was; I would spend hours behind my laptop, throwing words at Word documents for my final grades, feeling the crushing futility of my digital footprint not getting me any closer to an actual career; I would spend countless moments crying into a pillow or into my partner's shoulders, wondering when the next morsel of news regarding my graduation or summer plans to intern as a Production Assistant at a music center would be sent my way.

That isn't to say there weren't glimmers of hope that seeped through the cracks in the wall...but of course, they were mostly lies. We'd talk with family members, friends, faculty, and encounter countless talking heads on TV, Facebook, what have you, that would just brazenly declare the following:

"Oh, we'll get through this in 4, 5 months time!"

"It's media hype; how much could our lives actually change?"

"Come May, they'll have something figured out for your graduation! Just a small bump in the road, that's all!"

"Ok, but how many people will actually die? The fatality rate isn't that high!"

"This is all a ploy for global control by the damn Democrats!"

"They're inflating the body count; no way there's that many people dead."

Yeah, you already know.

What I want to investigate here is this: how do you say something of value about a year that everybody else has already said so much (sometimes incessantly) about? How do I say anything that you (probably) already know about? Is perhaps the vast scope of the a whole historic year's worth of events too much to grasp for one person that, for all their best efforts, still has gaps in their knowledge, given the deluge of information pouring forth like water from a broken levy? Do I, perhaps, take this time to humbly admit that I, a single man, can't possibly surmise all the complicated nuances of this past year and the events that allowed for this all to happen?

...

Of course not baby, this is the Internet!

What, you think opening an article from an American writer on the Internet would be layered with nuance?! I'm sorry, but have you seen anything that has happened this past year? I don't know if you've spent any semblance of time looking through the Hellish Window out into the world called Twitter or just turned a TV on, but...we're not very good at it! Tucker Carlson gets on his cable news show with frothing, befuddling rants about Dominion voting machines and that "...fraud took place, and that should horrify us", quickly followed up by 12 minute long footage of this face:

And then we wonder to ourselves, "Wow, everything's so crazy! When did people lose their minds?" To which I reply, "Do you even remember where you're at right now? This is the same place that thought to itself, 'You know what we're missing? We really need more of the same fast food place that led to the largest breakout of food poisoning in U.S. history (hint: it's Jack in the Box. Yeah, that one.). This seems like a collective market investment that is worth the time."

So, instead of admitting to any potential short fall in knowledge (which, may I remind you, as established by the Flattening of Nuance Clause, is not possible), I will attempt to ask an even bigger question: what can't be solved by a simple, categorical list of culturally traumatic, Earth-shaking events that can make anyone go, "Wow, oh my God, this whole list is just so me! Can relate."

Here is how I will make this *totally, commercially viable* article The One and Only 2020 Reflection You Need!

HERE'S HOW

In order to guarantee that you share this article, I have to lead in with something that is just so grandiose, it's almost ridiculous. A title or a series of catchphrases, as a means to entice you to learn more about the "20 Ways 2020 Was The Worst Ever".

Now, I know what you might be thinking, "Wait, isn't that just clickbait? I thought you said you were going to say something that nobody else hasn't said before?" To which I say...

...

Um...

INCORRECT!

See, I can't be making clickbait or over-promising on something that isn't necessarily intangible like a collection of thoughts. That would be like if you accused me of making clickbait and didn't deliver on the concept of serendipity, or perhaps on the sensation of deja vu, or, hell, I dunno, materializing primordial ooze from my fingertips. You know, just as an example.

That whole paragraph made sense, I promise.

To stave off this Intellectual Clickbait tendency, I will categorize the greater fucked up tapestry of this year in an itemized, neatly organized list that will detail the incredibly deep, subtle ways in which this past year, much like a ghost stalking the halls of your grandmother's old cabin that she keeps telling you isn't haunted but you will die on this hill, so help you God, has stripped all of us of the security that many of us were already sorely lacking in before the pandemic.

Are.

You.

Ready?

1.) Cancelling Your Favorite Band's Concert

We all got too familiar with this feeling this past summer. Whether it was Elton John, My Chemical Romance, or if you decided to finally make your long-awaited pilgrimage to Burning Man and become enshrined in that Group of People Who've Gone to Burning Man and Won't Stop Talking About That Time When They Went to Burning Man.

But what I bet you didn't know was that the live entertainment industry lost a collective $30 billion?! Or that approximately 2/3rds of performing artists reported unemployment due to venues shuttering or closing their performing season?! Or, even better, that the theatre industry spent a better part of the whole fiscal year advocating for basic federal assistance?!

You...you already read that Variety article...Which is something you already read about...

Uh...

Oh, I know! Did you know that I...I personally had to cancel and refund my tickets to go to a music festival in Atlanta...and that...it wasn't...fun...

...

That's soooo relatable, right?!

2.) Not Getting To See Friends and Family for the Holidays

Of course, there were the cancelled Thanksgivings and Christmases and all manner of holidays, but did you know that the general trend of travel actually...went down this past year?

Yeah, because, well...the CDC issued guidelines to...you know, travel less...

OH, BUT, there was a registered 25% drop in domestic travel over the previous year! There's uh...there's that figure for you...

You read that AAA Newsroom article as well, didn't you? And, if you were somewhat responsible, you would also tell me that this was just a lived experience for you, and that you didn't need some random person on the internet to tell you this...

Alright alright, I hear ya, I hear ya. This next one oughta be something you hadn't heard before about the ongoing pandemic!

3.) People's Screen Time Doubled in 2020

We all definitely logged into Netflix at least 5 times a day when many of us had to go home for an extended period of time, but just how much did we all doom scroll or get behind our desktops exactly?

Well, according to some estimates, that screen time doubled on average for most Americans jumping from 3 hours a day, to around...6. 6 hours...a day, and...

Ok, look here asshole. I know it doesn't take much to just look around and say, "Wow, sure does seem like people are spending more time on their phones during the Time Where We're All Inside and Can't Really Do Much Besides Sit on Our Phone and Look at the World Outside," but quantifiable data helps put perspective on all of this! You can't just rest on those eagle eye laurels that your mom or dad or whoever lauded upon you when you were like, 6 or some shit, and call your veritable world view "totally right"...

Oh...

I think I may have actually realized something.

4.) Confession Time

So, I'll be honest with you...

I don't think I have anything new to say about this past year.

I have no new insights, no grand conclusions, no observations that can put everything into perspective for you. I am just as lost, confused, terrified, angry, and downright miserable at times looking at how wrong things have gone as you probably are, and I don't know what to do.

I am terrified of things getting even worse, and I don't know what to do with that.

I started out writing this article with a dejected sense of irony, hoping to laugh at people that claimed prescience over everything that's been going on the past year; I wanted to laugh at people that claimed they knew more than actual virologists, maybe get some jabs at people that thought this would all just "roll over in a few months", and possibly dispense some little crumbs of knowledge here and there.

Truth be told however, I can't say anything that somebody else hasn't said before. I can't say anything that somebody else hasn't lamented over, or written a critical analysis of, or whatever other philosophical outlook that somebody already put out there to explain away the supposedly "new" threats that we've been seeing.

In Socratic fashion, I don't just know that I know nothing; the only thing I ever feel like I actually know is that I know nothing. Like, etched onto the stone tablet entitled "What Ben Actually Knows", and in incredibly fine, well-detailed typography that took hours, hell, maybe even days to carve are the words, "Jack shit".

For all the data I try to follow from the CDC and local health officials, I have little to no fucking clue when, where, or how I can resume my career as a theatre artist.

I have no clue where I'll be going to grad school.

I don't know how to repair relationships that were left damaged by the pandemic.

I don't know how many people I may have accidentally put in the hospital by just going to the grocery store, or by just being outside ever.

If I have learned anything from this past year, the consequences of both my and other peoples' actions reach far beyond what we can actually see; sure, there certainly wouldn't be anything wrong with just going to a restaurant, taking some friends out, sipping on some wine, and just having a good time. But what I feel like we don't fully realize is that just because we don't see any immediate repercussions doesn't mean that something didn't happen as a result of that.

The spread of you and your friends moving everywhere from restaurant to club to theme park to every possible public venue possibly will/can/absolutely will leave a COVID footprint that can put someone you may or may not know in the hospital.

To reference the Butterfly Effect (somewhat obnoxiously); just because you don't necessarily see the butterfly flap its wings doesn't mean it didn't create a typhoon over on the other side of the planet.

I realize now, looking back on James Roberts and his attempt to breach the sonic barrier by drunkenly running outside of the apartment complex, that anything and everything is capable of great, immeasurable change, even if I can't see it. And maybe, as an extension of that, I don't have to anything new to say about the greater nature of life in the pandemic, and maybe, just maybe, that...that is ok.

And while I may not know much in the way of where my life is personally going, like a proverbial Forrest Gump running down a cluttered highway with L.A. levels of traffic ready to turn me into a bloody pulp, I know what love is.

I know that billionaire CEOs making a collective $3 trillion while not raising their worker's pay and forcing them to go to work during a pandemic is wrong.

I know that police officers killing over 1,000 people annually, which statistically often means unarmed black men, women and children, is wrong.

I know that any healthcare system that is built off the profit motive, regardless of quality, is wrong.

I know that denying people housing, job opportunities, or any semblance of a happy life based off of sexual orientation, gender identity, race, religion, or any other human attribute is wrong.

I know that any homeless person is not the result of laziness or just "bad luck", but rather a system that cheats people out of housing and job opportunities as well as continuously punishing them for merely seeking out shelter from the cold, brutal winters, and those systems are wrong.

I know that denial of climate change, vaccine science, and the refusal to accept the greater efforts of the scientific community to improve all of our lives ultimately ends up killing more people in the process to fight those things, and that is wrong.

I know that many totalitarians and fascists are born out of the failure of late-stage capitalism and imperialism and those systems' failures to meet the needs of its citizens, and that is wrong.

If there is any reflection that is worth taking home from this, I think it's this: you don't have to know much to know what is fundamentally indecent with the world. Nuance exists in everything, and that is the curse of being human; to have the ability to see that nuance, but not always the will to follow through on that sight.

I hope that part isn't news to you, at the very least.

...

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go and keep knowing everything and nothing at the same time on the Internet.

SOURCES

1. https://variety.com/2020/music/news/concert-industry-lost-30-billion-2020-1234851679/

2. https://newsroom.aaa.com/2020/12/at-least-34-million-fewer-americans-to-travel-this-holiday-season/

3. https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/09/26/global-online-content-consumption-doubled-in-2020/?sh=b42232d2fdeb

Image sourced from: https://www.wired.com/story/an-oral-history-of-the-day-everything-changed-coronavirus/