WARNING: I go on a bit of a tangent here, so since this has been a rough time for just about all of us, stop now if you don't want to see anything that might depress you.




So, as the year is coming to a close, this is a time when a lot of people stop and reflect on everything that's happened, everything they've done, mistakes to learn from, good experiences to remember fondly, and look ahead with hope to the year to come.

Me?

*heaves a huge sigh*

I started this year with hope. I try not to be a superstitious person, but I thought if I entered the year with a can-do attitude, things would go well. It was the beginning of a brand new decade and in the Chinese zodiac, it was my birth year's sign! This could be a great year!

I'm an idiot.
One year nearly gone, and this year has been just more of the same at best, and at worst was a shit show. The pandemic was just the tip of the iceberg; I'd hoped it would just be an inconvenience, but instead everybody responded either with complete denial or like this was the perfect place to get political. And oh the politics this year; it's been shit for the last four years, and this year just put the nail in the coffin. We didn't need the virus to make things any worse, but it confirmed, without a shadow of a doubt, that GoT Season 8 was right; there are some people who, even in the face of an existential threat, will put their petty political bickering first.

Politics has been another serious issue, naturally. The last four years have been awful; I've lost friends because of this, been cowed into silence (with one brief flare up during the 3 ring circus that was this year's election) out of concern people will gang up on me on social media to mock, belittle or lecture me. The divide in this country has become even more absurd than ever before, with the extremes either support straight up communism or completely unregulated capitalism, the egregious flaws of either side utterly ignored. Identity politics has spread like a rash and is twice as irritating, the ends justifying the means is an attitude that has become disturbingly prevailent and overall, it just feels like we've seen a showcase of some of the absolute worat aspects of humanity - selfishness, peer pressure, bullying, hypocrisy, disrespect, arrogance, hubris and a complete lack of forgiveness and empathy.

Overall, this year has pretty much killed my willingness to have any degree of hope for anything short of God's kingdom after I finally kick it. As far as I'm concerned, if the future turns out for the better at this point, well that's nice, but it's nothing to get worked up about, and if it turns out to be shit, well no shock there. I'm not going to waste my time hoping 2021 is going to be any better than this year, because as this year's shown me, humanity at large has lost (if it ever actually had) the ability to stop acting like a bunch of whiny, obnoxious, mean-spirited dickheads even in the face of a crisis.

So, here's to another year of keeping my head down and just trying to muddle through and somehow make ends meet.