2020 Rearview
I’ve never done one of these year-end reviews, but this is no normal year. My usual philosophy on this is that calendar time is a relatively recent human construct, and you can be reflective or set resolutions at any time. Yet, when things slow down and with the calendar providing a neat framing this is as good a time as any.
Like many, 2020 has not been so good for me. I had a failed career transition. I broke up with two people. I had an awful, scary experience on a solo-hike. I had multiple canceled trips. Generally, just a lot of malaise and frustration at myself and the world.
Yet, I also stayed healthy. I went on two great ski trips in Jan and Feb. I started making more vegetarian meals. I was able to safely visit family in May and Nov. I made a group of new friends that I make awesome music with. I got back into playing more soccer. I’ve read a lot more. It’s not all bad.
2020 was brutal, br00t@l. In so many ways it felt like a lost year. One where we didn’t get to expand our lives like we usually do. Travel, meeting new people, seeing new things. So much was on pause. There’s nothing magical about January 1, 2021, but I believe that by Spring when the weather changes and it’s safer to interact we’re going to feel a lot better. In some ways, the end of the year has never felt so bad — reflecting doesn’t bring a lot of joy. In other ways, the end of the year has never felt so good — we’ve never been more ready to put a year behind us.
Here’s to a better year.
I decided to reflect by doing a review of what I learned this year as well as a rundown of my favorite things.
Enjoy!
What I (Re)learned
The importance of meta-cognition.
Thinking about your thoughts well. It seems to be the key to wisdom, mental health, productivity, learning, and more. I’ve consumed a lot of material this year about mindsets, growth, focus, emotional health, etc and this is a constant.
It’s not novel. In essence, it’s about smart reflection combined with awareness. It is difficult to be your best self if you’re not regularly evaluating your thoughts and behaviors. Making your unconscious the object of your consciousness is the foundation of therapy, journaling, and meditation. Thinking about your mistakes, behaviors, and lessons is how you learn and grow. Learning how to debug your brain so that you can operate at peak mental performance is the key to productivity.
The quality of your thoughts is everything, it’s the world you live in. Meta-cognition, it’s key.
None of us see ourselves or the world all that clearly, and that is the source of many of our problems
I wrote about this a little while ago. We go through life using the tools evolution gave us to interpret reality as best we can, but we’re not all that good at it. We interpret but don’t see with any clarity. We mistake things that we think will make us happy in the long-run. The reasons for our emotions and behaviors are often inaccessible to us. Our mental processes are full of biases and errors. Your experience of the world accounts for 0.0000000001 of it, but approximately 80% of your understanding of how it works.
We are all going through life partially blind, and because we can’t see we create problems for ourselves and others. It causes conflict, market bubbles and collapses, pandemics, etc. The closer we can get to a better understanding of ourselves and each other, the better off we are.
“The real problem of humanity is the following: we have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technology.” — E.O Wilson
This year I have not been able to stop thinking about this quote and how much I agree with it — especially in regards to the current social/political/economic situation in the US.
Tech giants like Facebook have figured out that our Paleolithic emotions like anger/outrage cause us to be more engaged on their platform and see more ads. Our medieval institutions were slow to see and slower to react to this and by the time it was obvious what was happening it was too late. We got Brexit and Trump.
That’s one example but there are many. In America, our country is breaking because we are one of the most technologically advanced countries but we use the world’s oldest founding document still in effect. Talk about medieval. We’re trying to operate with million-year-old hardware, 300-year-old government systems, while the landscape of culture and economy changes every few years. No wonder it’s all so messed up.
Favorite Things
Favorite shows
Watchmen — Is it cheating to put a show that technically came out at the end of 2019 in here? Regardless, what a prescient and captivating watch. HBO knocked it out of the park again.
Dave — I did not expect to like this show as much as I did. In true “Lil Dicky” fashion, the show is funny, different, and just the right amount of self-deprecating.
Favorite movies
Palm Springs — Funny, smart, well-paced, and original take on an old idea. Two fantastic acting performances. Just all-around good times.
I don’t watch many movies.
Favorite music
Songs
Midnight — Khraungbin, Leon Bridges. What a fun song. I love the rhythm, the folksy/bluesy/beachy vibe, the vocals. Couldn’t stop listening for a while.
Atomised — GoGo Penguin. This song just tickled so many of my music nerd tendencies, and from one of my favorite bands, too. Beautiful, energizing, dramatic.
Albums
Shore — Fleet Foxes. I never listened to much Fleet Foxes back when they were a real global hit, which is a shame because this resurgent album is so good. Robin Pecknold is a lyrical wizard. Can I Believe You and Sunblind really do it for me.
Resonate — Lettuce. I don’t have much else to say about this album except that the night it came out I put it on in my room while I cleaned/packed and I had to stop to take multiple dance breaks.
Live vol 1 — Parcels. In a year without live music, this is the closest you will get. Put in on while you have a night with someone where you just drink and talk. This group of Australian dudes, living in Berlin, making satisfying pop-funk music. It’s a lot of fun.
Favorite Reads
This is everything I want a blog post to be. Well-researched, relevant, insightful, concise, convincing. This is one I think everyone should read. How much better would the world be if we all recognized our crony beliefs?
The Confessions of Marcus Hitchens
This is a captivating and unique story that struck a lot of nerves for me. It’s part coming-of-age, part redemption, part tech journalism, part social commentary. I’ve read it multiple times.
How To Increase Your Attention Span
We all need help with this, right? This is a long piece (meta), but it covers A LOT of useful ground in actionable ways.
The Big Lessons from History
I’ve got a ton of respect for Morgan Housel who’s education and intelligence seem to span so many disciplines. I thought this blog post of his was especially interesting and insightful.
Favorite moments
The aforementioned ski trips were such good experiences. Great snow, great company, can’t ask for much more. I’m really glad I got those in before we all had to stay home.
Thanksgiving. My family’s Thanksgiving is usually quite the production. Housing, feeding and entertaining ~20 folks. It’s madness, but it’s great. This year was smaller, just 11 of us but it was still special, maybe even more so. For 3 days I was able to forget about the world for and man did I need that.
Nov 7th — Biden’s victory. Like the political junkie that I am, I was doom-scrolling and staying up so that I could know if American democracy was going to survive. After some burnout, I decided to go for a hike on a Sat and ignore the news. Once I got back in service, my phone was blowing up with news of Biden’s projected victory. The rest of the day was spent in relief while I texted friends, laughed at Rudy Guiliani, and could finally feel like I could close that background app taking up a ton of CPU space.
Favorite discoveries
Lentils. I could be wrong but I’m pretty sure I’d never had a lentil before this year. When I started cooking more vegetarian meals for myself, I saw that they were a recommended source of protein. Man, lentils are awesome. They come in different varieties, can be added into so many different dishes, difficult to mess up, taste good, last forever, inexpensive, and super nutritious. Go lentils!
Harry Mack. I got so much joy out of watching this guy going off doing improvised raps for people on the street. You can tell that he gets immense joy from it, and the looks of surprised joy on the faces of the people he’s performing for are great too. Joy all around.
The Knowledge Project. Yet another long-form interview podcast with experts to help you improve your life. Thing is, Shane Parish who runs the popular Farnam Street blog uses his experience in sifting through ideas to make the interviews truly valuable. He makes sure his audience gets digestible, actionable insights from the best of what other people have already figured out.
Favorite pictures
To end, here are 12 of my favorite photos that I took in the last year.
Pro-tip: live in Colorado.
