Reflections on 2020

[psychegram]

Last night, while writing in my journal, it struck me that everything that's been bad about 2020 has been purely external. There's no doubt I've let that affect me, falling far short of the stoic ideal. Very often I remind people that there's no point in stressing over situations over which they lack control, since obviously the stress won't affect the situation one way or the other ... the only things worth worrying about are the things that one can control. Easier said than done! I'm no stoic sage.

But having this thought, I looked back over the last year, from a purely personal perspective, and honestly in many ways it wasn't so bad. In fact, regarding purely those things over which I do have direct control, the year has actually been pretty good

- I lost 50 pounds, largely thanks to intermittent fasting, and got myself down to below 17% body fat for the first time since I was a teenager (I've put a few pounds on since, but that's been deliberate as I decided to start a bulking phase during the winter)
- Despite the closure of the gyms, I was able to acquire a set of dumbbells and continue my workout regime almost uninterrupted
- My bank account is looking very healthy, more or less entirely because I've barely eaten out or gone drinking since March
- At the beginning of the madness, I organized a weekly family Zoom chat, reasoning that I wasn't the only one who'd have trouble keeping sane; thanks to this a previously fraught relationship with one of my siblings has been largely repaired (and I've managed to follow my toddler nephew as he took his first steps and said his first words ... something that wouldn't have happened otherwise as they live very far away)
- I taught not one but two university courses - my first two courses ever - and despite their being mostly online was told by the students that they quite enjoyed them
- Thanks to a close friend starting a family, I became a godfather
- Having decided to give myself the classical education the debased indoctrination system had not provided me, I made a project of it and have now made my way through Caesar, Herodotus, Thucydides, and most of Plutarch (along with reading a couple dozen other books, at least ... I haven't watched any TV shows or movies in months....)
- I avoided porn for 150 days straight
- Since the summer, I've made meditation and prayer a part of my daily routine
- I've learned quite a bit of Russian, putting in 30 min to an hour a day, every day, since the summer

Putting it all together, despite 2020 having been one long psychological torture experiment, I'm finishing the year in better physical, intellectual, spiritual, financial, and professional shape than quite possibly at any previous time in my life.

Comparing notes with some friends, I'm not the only one to have had this sort of subjective experience in the midst of the general global calamity. Some have even said that, personally, this has been their best year ever. I don't think I'd go quite that far myself, but there's no question that 2020 felt like something of a personal breakout year. At the same time, looking at the statistics, I'm very aware that my private experience is worlds away from that of the majority of the population, who have spent the year being scared, depressed, and coping with Netflix and substance abuse. The common element with my friends is awareness - they all get what's really going on, globally, and do what they can on a personal level to mitigate things. As the C's say, awareness protects. Just knowing what's really going on, just being able to see reality, provides an element of insulation from the worst effects ... with the result that, even in the midst of a general meltdown, it's still possible to move forward, and even to be happy.

Not trying to say that this year has been all roses - I've struggled with depression, anger, the whole bit, as I'm sure everyone has. The year has felt excruciating. But even in the midst of that, there have been some real high points.

So, I thought I'd share that, not to brag, but to prompt others. In what ways has 2020 worked for you? How have you overcome, grown, even prospered, in the teeth of the storm? Let's take a moment and remember the good things in our lives, share them with one another, allow ourselves to feel some gratitude for those blessings ... and in the process remind ourselves that however crazy the world becomes, we have free will, our immediate lives (even if only internally) are under our control, and that our experience of this life is what we make it. 2021 is going to be a crazy year, so let's go into it with a bit of a morale boost.

 

[Deleted member 4737]

You know, I was just discussing this with a friend the other day. The media screams "this is the worst year in human history!" (I disagree btw) I have had a decent year personally.

I moved my family to a better place, welcomed my son to the world, learned how to fish, finished my masters and began my doctorate. Money is still an issue, as well as some physical and mental things, but this year has been much more productive and enjoyable for me than the last few. It has definitely taken a lot of work but worth it.

 

[mbww]

2020 was like a bad date, which sounded great in the beginning but then everything went wrong,
and when you get home you are grateful that at least you're alive.

 

[seek10]

It was hard to get good events in 2020. In the office, we were nervous for the last 3 years about new applications that were supposed to replace current systems and employees supporting it. This year it was decided that those systems are not going function (CIO fire and CTO ran away), so we got some reprieve. Also, I got some professional certification to improve my resume if I need to look for a new job.

Though Trump may not make it to 2nd term, he created enough of Feline nation, and hopefully, that will spoil whatever 4D STS evil plans for us. Let's see what will happen and immediate future doesn't look good. Reading suggested Romance Novels helped a lot with the situation.

 

[psychegram]

Reading suggested Romance Novels helped a lot with the situation.

Romance novels aren't my thing, so I ignored that thread ;) But reading Plutarch has helped immensely. Seeing how virtuous Romans and Greeks handled the vicissitudes of life, occasionally meeting defeat and tragedy with strength and bravery, certainly gives some perspective on things.

The important thing is to take inspiration where you can find it.

 

[mbww]

Romance novels aren't my thing, so I ignored that thread ;) But reading Plutarch has helped immensely. Seeing how virtuous Romans and Greeks handled the vicissitudes of life, occasionally meeting defeat and tragedy with strength and bravery, certainly gives some perspective on things.

The important thing is to take inspiration where you can find it.

Hey, Newton worked "from home" when the Great Plague hit London in 1665 and was forced to leave Cambridge for a countryside manor. It was there that he was bonked in the head by the falling apple and got his first revelation on gravity. Not bad for a plague year.

 

[psychegram]

Hey, Newton worked "from home" when the Great Plague hit London in 1665 and was forced to leave Cambridge for a countryside manor. It was there that he was bonked in the head by the falling apple and got his first revelation on gravity. Not bad for a plague year.

Indeed! Let's hope for some scientific breakthroughs happening in the background.

 

[genero81]

I'm in much better shape than I was in 2019, physically and financially. I think I did join ISGN in 2019, but this year I was able to get closer to those guys (and gals) and have a couple of my recommendations be the basis of our discussion. Collingwood's 'The Idea of History' and also Lobaczewski's 'Political Ponerology.' We were about to do 'Darwin's Black Box' on my suggestion but it got canceled due to too many members unable to make it. Collingwood made a tremendously positive impact on the Anthony, the groups owner, which opened the way for further suggestions.

I was in a living situation that really wasn't working for me or the other guy and my freedom was being curtailed due to concerns over Covid. I finished the year with a decisive decision to move out of there and into a situation that's given me my autonomy back.

At the same time it was a tough year. Ups and downs were accentuated.

One thing I almost forgot was the lock down provided the incentive for a Zoom meeting with my core high school group of friends who I hadn't seen in decades. That meeting went three hours and was one of the highlights of the entire year. We all thoroughly enjoyed it.

Also, for all the craziness, it was kind of good to see things finally get moving. The monotonous slow grind of decades of things slowly going down hill finally switched gears.

 

[seek10]

Romance novels aren't my thing, so I ignored that thread ;) But reading Plutarch has helped immensely. Seeing how virtuous Romans and Greeks handled the vicissitudes of life, occasionally meeting defeat and tragedy with strength and bravery, certainly gives some perspective on things.

The important thing is to take inspiration where you can find it.

We all had reservations when Laura initially suggested the specific authors and books. But when we started reading we realized the importance. It is more about hurts, the tough dialog between the partners, and healing. It is about simple karmic lessons. Better not to get judge based on cheesy title or cover pictures.

 

[MusicMan]

You know, I was just discussing this with a friend the other day. The media screams "this is the worst year in human history!" (I disagree btw) I have had a decent year personally.

I moved my family to a better place, welcomed my son to the world, learned how to fish, finished my masters and began my doctorate. Money is still an issue, as well as some physical and mental things, but this year has been much more productive and enjoyable for me than the last few. It has definitely taken a lot of work but worth it.

Hello RevChristoph, I think you're the first person I've noticed with a positive attitude toward the last year! For myself, we were using masks before the virus thingy, due to all the fires in our vicinity, and they lasted from September through March, and then it got worse from there. Anyway, here we are, we have come through it all, and have a positive outlook for 2021. Happy New Year!

 

[KristinLynne]

This is a great thread and I keep thinking about the universe liking balance so I too have many things to be thankful for this year in spite of the madness that has taking over so many. The first would be the virus was the push I needed to get over my predators mind and reconnect here on the forum. And to connect in a more natural way too. I feel like I've gotten to know some of you a little more and each of you have contributed ideas that I hadn't considered in some of the most popular threads. It is a blessing to have a better understanding of the events in this world and the means to navigate through it, with real information and the knowledge that we are not alone. It's actually priceless!

Working in retail, my routine wasn't changed all that much except that we are in the express lane shopping dept that exploded in work with others not wanting to enter into the store itself. When the old manager departed we all came together to get the job done and there was much less tension and more satisfaction than before.

Although, for me things changed much in October of last year when I brought mom home. Her dying when she did was also a signal that many other things were about to change but during that time I felt more at peace with her and hope I brought her some as well before she crossed over. That time also brought me closer to 2 of my cousins and for the first time in my life, I feel apart of a family. We now talk on a regular basis and I have been able to help one of them when she lost her own dad right before Christmas. I am thankful for that because she is the type of person who seems to be there for many others, asking little in return.

Oddly enough, it was the week after mom passed that an old friend got in touch with me. I thought she had died because the last message she had sent was that she had cancer and for almost 2 years, nothing. But that call came at a really good time and we talked of the things that had happened since we worked together back in the late 90's. We also keep in regular contact now and she considers me one of her children, so I am blessed to be apart of her family as well.

I have been able to do EE more on a regular basis except for the Christmas holiday week and have had more time to read. I hadn't watched much TV since 2013 and I noticed that my mind is much calmer without it. As for the romance novels, what I once thought of as a guilty pleasure turned out to be something that was indeed useful and could have much bearings on a new future if taken in the proper context.

I've never considered myself lucky but there was some luck involved as well as research when it came to choosing contractors and we worked on this house from January to October completing the many repairs, addition and updates here. It is now a safe, easy to clean place that has features that will help when growing older becomes a challenge. It is not fancy nor was it meant to be, the house was just in need of so many repairs and for the last 7 years, I had been limping along with it. It is now so nice not to have to worry about what will go wrong next and how much will it cost? That relief is freeing me to do other things.

This was just a quick list and I'm sure I'll think of more but for the time being... thank you all!

 

[Pearce]

[I began writing my reply in the early hours of Jan 1 before going to sleep from the evening, and am just now returning to finish and post it]

Thanks for starting this thread @psychegram, and what a really beautiful list of things to be grateful for. I could give many reasons or excuses for not having posted in awhile, but this thread gave me that feeling to post and that's the first thing I'm grateful for. I'm sure there are many other things I'm forgetting, but these are the things that stuck out as pivotal moments during my year.

This year I've had the opportunity to feel the range of human emotions, and even when I reacted less than stoically, I'm proud of my ability to more quickly address my bad reactions in situations where I had before been struggling, even prior to CovidWorld.

Financially I may be in a less than desirable situation, but it too has provided the exact needed framework to have the deeper conversations about our world and it's structure with people in my life I never thought possible. Kind of like I reached a point with nothing to lose and because of that I lost my fear as well.

I'm grateful for the time I've spent away from technology, even if it took longer for me to drop some things than I would have liked.

I landscaped my front lawn, and sweated profusely during the process, and actually enjoyed every second of it. The new plants and succulents gave me very relaxing summer nights.

I've moved away from the last two of my real vices, and though that work is not complete, I'm miles further than I thought I would achieve in such a short time, and for that I'm extremely grateful. In relation to this, my dreams have become more vivid, multi-dimensional, and easier to remember, and although I am always running from or fighting something in them, sleeping has overall become more peaceful again, something which has been dodgy since a major vehicle wreck in 2018.

In addition, I've had to fill the now empty space and time with things more productive, and am so happy and better off for it. Some of the things include reading physical books (of which at one point this summer I read 5 books in 7 days!!) and doing more labor with my hands.

I discovered a new love for woodworking while learning to make Native American flutes, and in a sense inherited a workshop full of tools and equipment that a good 75% or more are 20 or so years older than I am, most of which came from my great grandfather who passed in 1970.

I learned more about my parents and was shown the way to memories of my younger self through some of these conversations.

I began digging into my father's line of ancestry as it was the only line which had not been investigated before, and found some really cool connections in the annals of history. I learned the names of those from whom I descend that participated in the Civil War, those that landed on some of the first ships in America, and even some possible connections to old royalty in England and even some former, less-savory US Presidents (which makes me laugh). Even my mother's lines are intriguing, with my grandfather descending from an Indian War Chief and my grandmother having come down from Chief Justice John Marshall, for whom the Liberty Bell supposedly cracked when ringing upon his death. This research gave me a clearer sense of being connected to something bigger than myself, and for which I am very grateful.

I've become closer with my father this year, and I would trade nothing in the world for those moments of spending time together, and the moments when I can just ask a question and bond with him.

And as the year has closed out, I finally began the steps to learn about and start the process of setting up a hydroponic and aquaponics garden, and to acquire some chickens, all of which were things I felt too big for me to handle, but which started to just open up in front of me like stones raising out of the water to catch my feet, as long as I took the step in faith.

All in all, 2020 was as hard as nails but provided exactly what was needed throughout for me to more forward with strength, faith and Grace that I am where I am supposed to be, and that all of us will do what we will do, regardless.

Finally, and again, I am so ever thankful to the forum and it's many members here. Words cannot express fully how much it has helped shape me into who I am today.

Let the old fall away and let the new be born again, and let it carry all who may fly to ever-increasing heights of love, knowledge, and being.

 

[psychegram]

All in all, 2020 was as hard as nails but provided exactly what was needed throughout for me to more forward with strength, faith and Grace that I am where I am supposed to be, and that all of us will do what we will do, regardless.

That was awesome. Thanks for sharing all of that, it was really beautiful!

Kicking vices is hard ... I know that from experience. But, one you've really decided to do it, it gets a lot easier. One thing I found helpful is to try and see myself from the outside, as say an ancestor might looking down from Heaven, Valhalla, Elysium, or whichever part of 5th D they might be inhabitating. I usually find that thinking of someone I want to impress watching me about to do something shameful is enough to kill the urge out of sheer embarrassment.

Speaking of ancestors, finding out about your family line can be very inspiring, and I'm really happy for you that you did ... and that you discovered such illustrious antecedents! When you realize what you came from, your conception of your own potential is often improved.

Thanks to my mother poking around in my grandfather's scrapbooks, I recently got to see a picture of my great-great-grandfather when he was roughly my age. It turns out I'm his spitting image ... something I'd never realized before. He's something of a family legend for his adventurous life and tireless entrepreneurship, so finding out that I seem to inherited his physical features was pretty meaningful and inspiring to me. Not to mention weird, considering that statistically I should only have 1/16th of his genetics. Hereditity is weird, and I don't think we fully understand it....

 

[Pearce]

@psychegram

Yes indeed, vices are their own beast to reckon with! The desire has been there for awhile, but honestly if not for the external situation 2020 hoisted upon me, maybe I never would have made the progress I did. Life this year literally told me "you don't have a choice anymore!" regarding them.

And I agree about the shame/embarrassment, I often think of my father's mother who passed in 2009. Growing up my family shared some acreage with her and my grandfather, who also passed in 2017. A highly wooded area (my hometown was originally a logging village), I used to enjoy the proverbial walk through the trail in the woods to grandmother's house. She was a homemaker, always providing a bountiful meal for the family, something I didn't realize how special it was until I grew up and went to college and subsisted on ramen noodles and junk food. I wish so much that I could pick her brain as an adult, she knew so much about gardening and raising a healthy family.

That's awesome getting to see a picture of your great-great-grandfather! Isn't it just the weirdest thing about genetics and looks? Sometimes I wonder if we really aren't a piece of our formers, who through the birthing of children give a little of their soul to continue on the journey of life. In that vein, now that I know more about my family history, I can think of myself as truly having "been there, done that" and it really helps me try to make a different choice or think a different way regarding the future. But also to draw upon their strengths in situations I can't begin to fathom.

During my search I came across this story, and even though it's only a distant relation, he and I still share the same last name. (My forum name is a play on the name, also one I used earlier in life because I felt like a nobody from a nobody family , but now see it as maybe an allusion to "piercing the veil") This story brought me to tears for about a week or more when I discovered it and read through the diary entries, and honestly it still gives me the chills and makes me tear up a bit when I think about it.

At the time the material was donated to the Library of Congress, it was the only original record of a POW experience from the Pacific Theatre of that war. God now I'm going to cry all over again

George Washington Pearcy collection: Veterans History Project (Library of Congress

"I hope that you are saving these letters and putting them in the lower drawer of my desk as I want to keep them as a record of my time in the Army." (Letter to Mother, 11/19/1940).

At the time Pearl Harbor was bombed, George Washington Pearcy had been serving in the Philippines with the Army Air Corps for nearly a year. Captured by the Japanese in May 1942, he spent the next 29 months as a prisoner of war, during which he meticulously documented his incarceration on whatever scrap paper he could find. In October 1944, Pearcy was forced aboard the prison ship Arison maru, which was sunk by an American submarine while en route to mainland Japan. Before departing the Philippines, however, Pearcy gave his makeshift diary to fellow prisoner Robert Augur, with the request that it be delivered to his family should he not survive. Following the liberation of the Philippines, Augur kept his promise and sent the diary to Pearcy’s family in March 1945. It took another two months before the Pearcy family received official notification of their son’s death.

It's hard for me to imagine the true horrors of war, but I hope I can play a part in whatever may come to alleviate some of the suffering that has been done in my name as an American, or perhaps any suffering I may have been a part of in another life. It also made me appreciate the ties with my family and those I love and consider family that much more.

2020 - "One heckuva ride!"

 

[Pearce]

Also, apologies for getting so personal and emotional, but also thank you again for the space to open up like that. I'm still really feeling those full moon in cancer energies