The America We Saw in 2020

The great loss of the 21st century is the collective soul of the American human existence. Interpersonality has waysided to indifference. How do you hold a conversation with someone about your thoughts, when in their mind, their thoughts are the only ones that matter?

Realistically, I'm quite happy. Though, also realistically, I understand I am not. I'm not happy about politics, personalities, giving voice to the grotesque (subjective, sure), authoritarian disloyalty, money grabbing power brokers, the seediness at the top echelon of people, the fact that money rules, and watching people chase dollar bills while their family connectivity dies. The great fallacy of the American dream is that sacrificing your relationships for fortune is a viable way to achieve your goals.

The drive to be something, the thirst to be heroic, the ruthless aggression that is prejudice and "body politics", when the variant lot of people harping on and praising devilry, are the people who likely have very few values to begin with.

Morality and ethics, civility, have been replaced with the quest for pert individuality through choosing a political side, which, funnily enough, turn people into lemmings the very moment they brand themselves.

2020 hasn't been a hellscape; current American living is a hellscape that was unearthed in a piercing of the veil from a long-since-dormant individual desire to do as one pleases at all cost.

There's very little decency, and there sure as fuck isn't any fairness, in the American landscape. America 2020 has been the big reveal at the end of Wall-E where individuality-seeking, self-serving hypocrites weigh in on everything that doesn't involve them, and demand they're treated like royalty because they managed to formulate an opinion about something with which they formerly had no knowledge.

What did I think of 2020? It's the same shit I've been seeing for at least a few decades now, and now I've got pointable proof that Americans are so culturally, emotionally, interpersonally void, that even when a doctor is begging them to potentially save a life, America collectively looks back and says "no".

America is the place where police have every right to murder someone for the fuck of it, because maybe, potentially the black guy over there could totally possibly be the suspect of a crime, so I'm going to shoot him before I find out and totally still keep my job after a respite unpaid leave.

That's America, in a nutshell. Oh, and for the "why don't you just leave" type that's no doubt roiling their tongues around their dung-flavored mouths, it's not about that. I salute the flag, support what police I have any remote semblance of trust in - a trust that grows thinner by the day - , and I live for others as often as I can, which is more often than many people have earned.

What will I do in America 2021?

I will lead by example. I will act, and be, exactly who I want to be. I will take into consideration my emotional footprint. I will guard my heart. I will give according to the leading of my spirit. I will edify the experience of the person experiencing loss. I will love, even when I want to choke. I will not stand idly by, so help me, and watch my friends suffer. I will think and act according to what will help the collective, rather than stare longingly at my own reflection because "I'd fuck me".

I will be for others a person to lean on, to confide in, to trust fully with the experiences in life that hurt or heal.

Inasmuch as I can, I will still call to light liars, hypocrites, money mongers, racists, gender-equality-and-rights deniers, and may each and every one of them fear my reprisal if they've attacked in my presence.

January 1st, 2021 is just another tomorrow. Nothing will have changed, no magnificent paradigm shift in the humanistic lexicon will take place. I doubt there will even be much of a change come January 1st, 2022, save for hopefully the Marvel Studios movies actually releasing.

What I can do for my tomorrow, is insure I won't make the cold-hearted, uncaring decisions of the collective, and to resume being fucking great at being great to others. I can, but likely will not, assume the same about the collective.