New Year’s Eve 2020

As any year winds down, I start looking at the unlikeliness of the year that was. In 2020, that practice takes on extra meaning. Every year is unlikely. We live on a planet that supports life. Scientists believe there are as many as 100 billion solar systems and none of the planets in them (a number which comes with 25 zeros, by the way) is known to be livable. That we went around the sun on this one seems pretty remarkable. That we all made it this far where 200 million other sperm did not, is more remarkable still. Every year is unlikely, 2020 may be the most unlikely of my life.

The big stuff you know. There was a pandemic. Racial unrest complete with protests and riots. Australian wildfires. Charles Portis died. The president was impeached (yes, that really was just this year) and then lost re-election. Perhaps worst of all, even now not every one agrees that all of the things I just listed even happened. Perhaps there are known planets that support life after all because there seems to be a sizable population on Earth-2, a place where China, the Democratic Party and the ghost of Hugo Chavez have colluded to change the vote totals in one national race while keeping them the same in others even on the same ballot. These things obviously grabbed headlines and affected the way we lived but they don't reflect how an individual gets through 366 days (of course 2020 was a Leap Year), filled with private successes, heartbreaks, missed opportunities and strokes of good luck. I witnessed an actual dumpster fire, taking place a few weeks ago at an apartment building near a McDonald's where everyone, including me, just kept getting their Big Macs and apple pies while a waste bin belched smoke and flames. I would call that a perfect metaphor for the year except I know the story of the debut broadcast of BBC Two. The channel was supposed to be the "serious" alternative to the original BBC when it launched in 1964 but 35 minutes before the channel was supposed to go live, the power at the station went out. The mascot of the station was a cartoon kangaroo named Custard and an employee was tasked with getting a live kangaroo onto the set. The power went out right after the doors of the elevator carrying him and the animal closed. Apparently Custard just lost it. If there is a year that feels like being trapped in a frozen elevator with a kangaroo that is going berserk, it's 2020.

Throughout any year, everyone suffers in profound ways and everyone has reason to celebrate. Each of us makes decisions in the course of a year, some have measurable impacts, others seemingly do not, some still do not bear fruit for years or generations. The genius of the human mind is that it doesn't buckle under the weight of the consequences of its own decisions. What did you do this year that may impact the rest of your life?

I'm the kind of person that whenever I forget something that delays me leaving the house by even a few moments, I am weary that I have destined myself for a wreck, a collision with a person who runs a stop sign who would have sailed passed me had I left when I wanted to. A different type of person would look at a delay as a sign that I avoided that same theoretical crash by being late for but the point is, the things that happen to us are so often culminations of dominos falling into place over a long, coincidental journey. Nearly everything can be the product of a Sondheimian mixture of various decisions made in isolation that bring about an outcome in concert. I got a job in February for a company that helps people work remotely. In February of 2020. That seems like incredible foresight, especially considering there was another job I was after that I didn't get, much to my frustration, though now it looks like I might have dodged a bullet. However, it wasn't that at all, and the reasons I was looking for that job stretch back months and involve decisions that I didn't make and may not even be aware of. It worked out, is all I can say.

I also had a daughter in June, a little person who has known nothing but 2020 (imagine that for a second) and will hopefully never have to know terms like "social distancing" and "mask protests" except for her history classes. Having children is an act of hope in the face of risk, a decision whose final outcome will not be known until the end of your life and can certainly not be anticipated. What joy and sorrow will this person bring me? What decisions will I make to swell or break her heart? All new fathers think of themselves at some point as Silas Marner, a hardened independent turned to mush by this feminine presence, but we fear becoming Lear or Balzac’s Père Goriot, devoted to daughters who do not love us and will not even visit us on our deathbeds. It's possible that I've already made decisions on Effie's behalf that will have an unforeseeable impact and it's likely that I will at some point, seeing as we are now part of each other's lives for better or worse. "Electric word life," the philosopher said. "It means forever and that's a mighty long time." The potential for that is both exhilarating and terrifying.

Unintended consequences are a fact of nature. Any visitor to Australia is probably aware that the continent has a near monopoly on the world's deadliest things (and not just kangaroos in elevators). I've been lucky enough to go twice and I was never worried about the abundance of large crocodiles or toxic snakes. Not even the box jellyfish, the most murderous of all and a personal bogeyman, weighed to heavily on my mind. I did, however, think of spiders, 3 of the 4 most venomous in the world live in Australia and they can be in your bed while you're sleeping or in your shoes while you innocently put them on or rest in other places of your psyche known for fear. The worst of the gang, the funnel-web spider, has defensive venom that seems to only fell humans and other primates. When it bites a dog or a koala, the victim shakes it off but a man will succumb quickly to pain, respiratory problems, convulsions and deadly high blood pressure. Have they evolved to be man killers? Quite the opposite. Deadly venom is an evolutionary risk, seeing as if a prey kills a predator, it runs the chance of find itself preyed upon by a different, less prone assailant. It is best to send a message of "don't mess with me" to a foe that still lives because the dead learn no lessons. Funnel-web spiders have been living in Australia for 145 million years, they've only shared the island with us for last 65,000, a mere blink of the eye. They developed a venom that accidentally kills an animal they never thought they'd run into.

History has its fair share of unforeseen discoveries from penicillin to velcro. Raconteur Stephen Fry's observes that Europe's love of wine potentially swung the scientific balance from the east to the west for a thousand years (and counting). Asia was the seat of scientific discovery for most of antiquity, it's where we get the abacus, the calendar, the fishing reel, silk, parachutes, umbrellas, wheelbarrows and paper. The Chinese invented drilling for oil, they came up with gunpowder and the suspension bridge, it was from them that the world got the flush toilet. And it was in China that porcelain was invented, all the way back in the Han dynasty from 206 B.C. to A.D. 220. In fact, it's why we call it china. But they didn't like wine, the beautiful color of which needed to be displayed in a vessel that showed off its opacity and tone. The earliest known types of glass dates from Egypt in 1350 B.C. but it was Europeans who mastered transparent glass, which is ideal for carrying liquid because it does not react with what it is carrying. From there it was telescopes, then microscopes, then flasks, beakers, pipettes and so on, all worked on by scientists who were given 15 or 20 extra years to read and learn through eyeglasses. Meanwhile, the closed society of China (which has its own intellectual drawbacks) didn't make its own glass until the 1800s, all because it thought it fixed the problem of drinkware 2000 years earlier.

I think about these things at year's end. With the promise of a new calendar, I wonder what choices made years ago will pay dividends now, what decisions will I make that will lie in wait for years to come, and what things will cost me because I think I've figured them out. New years are beautiful things, full of the opportunity of goals achieved, the promise of workout regiments abandoned, and the chance for personal examination. This one can't come soon enough.