I usually have a blurb or two to jot down at year’s end for
my own sense of posterity. I’m later than usual about getting around to posting
something about it. However, this past year of 2020 has, of course, been significantly
different. I really had nothing good to say about it except that I managed to survive
it, quite literally. And that’s not even taking to account the happenings
related to the pandemic. I’m just so glad that it is finally over. I came out
of it somewhat scathed, and more perplexed at how people adhere to stupidity
and ignorance and other ideas that are the antithesis of science as a coping mechanism, but at least I came out of it.
I’m thankful for at least that. It’s about the only thing that I can find to
reconcile with how wicked the year was to everyone. I permit the first five
days of the new year to slack off and dream about what challenges there are to overcome,
and then use the remaining 360 days to manifest some sort of order for dealing
with it all.
So then, what is it that I’m looking forward to in 2021? It
depends on if people smarten up or not. I know that since last September, I’ve already
been relegated to take on improving my health seriously and radically in some
instances. Resolutions in that area are already becoming a reality and a work
in progress. I suppose the beginning of 2021 is the time when I am going to get
more feedback about if my efforts are working out for the better. I’m clearing
my way to get vaccinated as soon as possible, whenever I get notice from Health
Canada or the provincial authority for my turn. My other ambitions I’m keeping
private. The markers I use as my qualifiers for meaningful year-to-year transitions
are as follows
Last Purchase of the Year: I recently upgraded to a new iPhone.
I (used to) think that I am pretty savvy at figuring out new technologies. However,
skipping up to something that is an advancement of five generations from my
last model of iPhone is a bit daunting. It makes me feel like a monkey playing
with a shotgun. There are some things I can appreciate about it; others are a
little too tricky for me, or clash radically with my modality of doing things.
Book of the Year: The Rosie Result by Graeme Simsion.
I actually received it in Yule Bookfest celebration on the last Sunday before
Christmas in 2019. It’s a quirky, and touching book, but I honestly just
finished it recently. The storyline of a maladjusted kid struggling through
school and life pulled at scabs of memories of my own educational upbringing (which
I hated). I loved learning things: I hated school. It was a valid of story of
maladjustment that helped me endure a thoroughly despisable year awash with an
environment with new stressors we never normally had to think of before.
Scotch of 2021: A single malt 12 year old Macallan. A
non-smoky, light of caramel, honey-bodied elixir, with notes of apple, cinnamon,
and a bit of vanilla.
I’m hoping that the year 2021 will be a year of progressive, yet cautious, re-emergence. I certainly got a good shocking glimpse at what I really have undervalued. With continued discipline, I hope this will be the year I will pull myself through the worst of what has happened in the year that passed.
