2020 Year of the coward.

Much has already been said what happened in this fateful year of 2020 as an invisible virus name corona entered our vocabulary. Many are the speculation about what this all means.

In March we were urged to flatten the curve and nine months later were standing here, with a distance of course, scratching our heads, did we just kick back 7 decades of democratic, economic and human rights progress right back to pre WW2 days.

Our elected officials betrayed us. Said one thing meant and did another. Science confused us - in March masks and lock downs doesn’t work, December, masks and lock down + vaccine is here to stay - forever. Data was read and analyzed like the devil reading the bible. Media cooks up their evil stew sowing division and paralyzing billions. Economies  and nations collapsing and the receipe to the mess were told is - STAY AT HOME.

Covid exposed our flaws. Brought out the best in some and the worst in others. Covid divided us.  Who's fault, who's to blame. Scientist and doctors disagreing on solutions. Medicine politicsized. Vaccine is the new .com. Politicians and big tech shows their ugly side. Censorship. Oh brother were art we?

Two lifetime of aviation profits wiped out in one year.

Foundations in society trembling and we are meere spectators, zooming and posting, waiting for, waiting for, waiting for the world to change. Global debt raised by 15 trillion US. Money that our children and children's children will have to pay for

 It’s the year when people hiding in basements became presidents. When couch potatoes were hailed as heroes. It is the year of death of freedom speech. Tech company sensors your posts and eventually you. Arrests at Speakers corner in London became norm.

Duly elected leaders got a taste of what it is to be in power without the tyranny of democracy.

 Its the end of the world, as we know it, and I don’t feel fine.

But the future is unwritten as Doc Emmet Brown says.

 To create the future we need to go back and bring out both old and new from the coffins of wisdom and experience Everything can be taken away in an instant, and we will always be at the mercy of our governments, so we pray for their wisdom and guidance so we might live in peace and prosperity.

We learn that

Civilization is frost thin and freedom is hard won, easy lost. We have also learnt that when you have nothing to loose your mind is freed and that’s a wonderful place to create something new.

We have learnt what really matters in life and that the real heroes of 2020 are the every day people, so often forgotten;

The nurses, the doctors

The teachers trying to keep their classes together online

A parent juggling a job via zoom while learning to home school and parent their children - all at the same time – an impossible task.

Not to mention the garbage collectors, the cashiers, the bakers, the priests. We honor all of you!

We are also grateful for

the expats serving separated from their families for months on end

the kind landlords who gave rental holidays

the banks extending credits and deferred mortgage payments

the tireless entrepreneurs that desperately tried to find new ways to adapt their products, and services.

The ones attending the elderly

The dogs that weren't allowed to go outside and still unstintingly loving their owners.

As the year come to and end we conclude that 1.5 million people died with and by covid. Slightly above normal winter flu. Majority, men above the age of 70 with pre consisting conditions.

Repairing the damage of lock downs, mending break up of global supply chains, rebuild businesses, dealing with the psychological damage will take years if not decade.

 So how are we to live?

We are to do what mankind always have done. Build houses, plant trees and gardens, fall in love,  get married, get children, do whats good for our families, neighbors and society. Build companies. Or as CS Lewis would have put it: "the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds. BOOOM (my comment)

 In 2021 the Hero

Goes to the office

Have a pint in the pub

Put on your best clothes

Wear make up

Take to the skies

Go on a roadtrip

Visit friends

Go explore

Take granny for a walk

Visit new nations

We do it with grace and humility because the best is yet to come. How do i know? Well, I read The Book and I know how it all ends.

 And with that I want to wish you wonderful Christmas and blessed new year of 2021

 Stephan