Let’s hear it for 2020!

1/1/21

Janus is the Roman god for which January was named, and he was pictured with two faces—one looking forward and one backward. It’s in that spirit that, instead of cursing 2020 and damning it to hell, we should instead appreciate it for all it’s given us.

Of course it’s taken a lot away, which we all are very well aware of. There’s no question this has been a worldwide trauma, radically changing how we live, dividing us along fault lines of science vs dogma, alas. We look forward, with huge relief, to the vaccine. Easier days are coming, in that sense. Looking forward is hopeful.

But for now, most everyone seems to have celebrated the passing of 2020 with what ranges from jubilation (John Oliver) to mere denigration of the year. #fu2020 is the meme of the moment, but think about it: Do we really want to despise an entire year, as if it’s the year’s fault? Do we really want to discard 2020, forget it as quickly as possible, pretend it didn’t exist?

The cries to get back to “normal” grow as the virus is raging out of control in the US, the new strain far more infectious (though not more deadly) than the original one.

I propose that, instead of simply hating 2020, that we remember it, value it, and cherish it. Why? Because “normal” is what was killing us and the planet. Going back to that would be disastrous, and we all know that at some level.

We ought to feel deep appreciation for what the year gave us: waking up, realizing that Rilke in his poem “Archaic Torso of Apollo” was right: You must change your life. We all must. That is what this time in history asks of us. Do we have the courage to change how we live?

We must learn to live more humbly, respecting that there are powers in the world far beyond our puny ones. A microscopic organism brought the forward-hurtling death-loving machinery of the planet screeching to a halt. And—it’s just what we needed. Income disparity went up. The universal rule is that we don’t change until things become unbearable. The need for universal health care became acutely obvious. Socialism became normal to speak of, because we woke up finally to seeing that, as the experts have been telling us forever, in the US we have socialism for the rich and capitalism for everyone else. When the rich fail, the government bails them out.

The election taught us (or is about to teach us) that while getting rid of Trump was important, to sub him for Biden is not moving forward—even his most avid supporters seem to admit that. Most of his picks for cabinet posts are old guard—the ones who gave us 2020. What I mean is that our lack of universal health care (Biden has made clear he’s opposed to such), along with baked-into-the-system income disparity, all made the virus far worse than it should have been. Democrats as well as Republicans voted avidly for the obscene Defense spending bill: three-quarters of a trillion dollars! But they cannot allow a $2,000 payment for the rest of us because it would break the bank. I can’t remember a time in my life when the government—Dems and Repubs—has been so callous toward the suffering of its citizens.

Individually, we learned that we can stay home and that it feels good because life really is just about being with those you love. If we found it hard to stay home, that difficulty revealed to us our addiction to always being on the go. It also reminded us that life is never safe, and that driving to work is a risk. The virus made that clear. There is nowhere we can be safe. It’s time to drop the pretense that there is.

So let’s have a toast to 2020 and, like every other year, mourn its passing. It gave us a lot of death, but not all of the deaths were bad. Every change requires a kind of death to an old way of living. Maybe now, as a species, we’ll make the changes that are essential—not optional—in order to save ourselves and the ecosystem.

This is why, for all the loss we have all felt this year, I will never revile 2020.

Let’s hear it for 2020!