Tag: year-end

One of the outstanding features of this year – and there were a few – was the extent to which people were grouped into ideological tribes, or to which they aligned themselves with specific ideological tribes. More than any year since November 2016, you had to take a stand on the presidency of Donald J. Trump. You had to formulate an opinion about the Black Lives Matter organisation. You had to decide where you stand with the movement calling themselves Antifa in many Western countries. You had to decide if it is okay if protesters burn down buildings, destroy small businesses, and assault individual members of the public in groups against which the individual can offer virtually no resistance. (Previously, you might have thought it easy to condemn this type of behaviour, but 2020 was the year when even close family members and people in your social circle approved of such behaviour with a fist in the air, or a graphic of a fist in the air on social media.) It was furthermore the year you had to decide whether COVID-19 deserved the label of pandemic, or whether it is just another of the occasionally deadly viruses that plague the world every few years. And even if you agree that it is a pandemic, you have to form an opinion on measures that governments worldwide have implemented to combat the virus. What’s more, your own business, your own source of income, may have been threatened, and may have gone under, due to lockdown periods or other measures. Since November, you have also had to take a stand on the US election. Was it free and fair? Did the media in America give both presidential candidates the same treatment? Did they give both candidates an equal chance to state their case? If damning revelations were made about one of the candidates, did the media treat it with reasonable impartiality? Seeing that there were opportunities for corruption in the election – as with surely any large-scale enterprise managed by thousands of people, seeing that there was more than adequate incentive to commit fraud – political office brings many benefits to the victor and their supporters, and seeing that there was not enough time to investigate any serious allegations – the investigation into allegations of Russian involvement in the 2016 election lasted approximately two years, and in the light of improbable statistics, can it be said with certainty that the official winner of the election is the legitimate winner? Then, to round off the opinion bonanza, there was Climate Change and Global Warming, and the World Economic Forum and their Great Reset; there were the ongoing negotiations on Britain’s departure of the European Union; the debate over whether an adult man can simply declare he is a woman and from that moment on claim entitlement to protection and rights intended exclusively for women; the question of whether teenagers and pre-teens can decide on their own what gender they are and if it does not match their genitals, immediately proceed without their parents’ consent with hormone treatment which can have long-term, irreversible consequences; and the growing bias and political agendas of social media – maybe not a problem if they are politically in line with yours, but what happens if you change your mind? The trend that has been going on for a number of years of people losing seats on discussion panels, or being fired or losing contracts because they said or wrote something that is against the accepted currents of thought of the day, also compels one to wonder if there really is still room for free debate. Can you still think what you want and keep your job? Can you still express an opinion in a private conversation about taxation or immigration or religion or climate change and expect it not to cost you your way to earn a living? Can a scientist do experiments with the knowledge that he will still have a job if the results of his experiments are not popular among social and political activists?

Nevertheless … nevertheless … I am grateful. I’m thankful I’m still alive. I am thankful that my two sisters, their children, and my two dear parents also survived the year. And I am grateful for my wife and partner who makes every day better with her love, her companionship, and her support. Then I am grateful for my health, and for a good home in Taiwan. I’m grateful for our two cats. I am grateful for all the eateries in our neighbourhood where we can enjoy tasty and healthy meals. I am grateful for all the opportunities I have to make money. And – I’m thankful for the pleasant cool weather today in Kaohsiung (13ºC), and for the nice cup of hot, black coffee I enjoy as I type these words.

Be good to yourself in 2021. Be good to people who share your life with you, and whose lives you share. Be good to people who are strangers to you right now, but maybe later friends. And be reasonable with people you disagree with, and don’t burn bridges that you will later regret. And if people are not reasonable with you? Keep your conscience clean and your intellectual honesty intact. And make sure you have enough money in the bank – or in your safe, or in your crypto wallet, or in your little bag of gold and silver, and enough sources of income that cannot be cancelled overnight.

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TUESDAY, 24 DECEMBER 2019

I realised tonight that next week is not just the end of a year, but the end of a decade – my third end of a decade as a full-fledged adult.

The first decade after high school started for me in a missionary house, with me part of a team hoping to convert more people to the Christian faith. The decade ended for me in the streets of Hong Kong, very far from home, and even further removed from any kind of certainty about my own future.

I started the ’00 decade as an overweight smoker with a bad attitude and a problematic self-esteem. Ten years later, I exited the decade at a bit of a low-point – less overweight, no longer a smoker, but financially relatively broke. And I was already 38. The decade did include some of the proverbial best years of my life: I started writing in 2003 as if a fever had taken hold of me, and by the middle of the decade I had met a woman who could only be described as an angel descended from the seventh heaven upon my earthly existence. Nevertheless, the highlights were in the middle of the decade; the end would have made any mortal anxious.

And so began my third decade as an adult. In 2011 I turned 40. I continued with a variety of projects intended to bring about more financial security, and I returned to my writing with renewed dedication. This decade had highlights of a different intensity, and the lows were not quite as low as in the previous decade.

TUESDAY, 31 DECEMBER 2019

What are my predictions on the eve of this fourth decade of my adult life?

No predictions. No short speeches to motivate myself. I’m already happy. I’m already doing much better financially than in previous decades. I’m already living the fuller life I dreamed of in my twenties and early thirties.

Am I prepared to do even better? Am I ready to travel even more, give more, provide more assistance, do more of what I am already doing? Am I ready to experience even more of life? Is there a fuller version of me that I’m already becoming as I type these words?

* * *

One fairly wealthy friend of a friend mentioned this year that the life we – Natasja and I – are living is closer to the lives of billionaires than to the lives of people struggling for survival. “Sure,” he said, “billionaires have fine Egyptian cotton linen and they live in bigger houses, but you – like them – have running water, modern plumbing, stable electricity and high-speed internet. Compare that to people who live in shacks with no running water, no electricity, no internet …”

I was also reminded recently of an old truth: There are things we have no control over; there are some things we have partial control over, and then there are things that depend to a significant degree on our decisions – if you choose this path, then this is the path you’ll be following for the next few months, and maybe for the rest of your life; if you choose that path, that would be the path you’ll be following for the next few months, and maybe for the rest of your life. It is therefore wiser to focus instead on the aspects of your life that you do have the most control over. And if you tend towards honesty and a critical view of things, you’d recognise that you have sufficient control over your own life and the environment in which you live to create the fuller life of which you could only have dreamed when you were younger.

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(Is it Monday, or Tuesday? Is it 2018 or 2019? Is it this year, or next year, or last year?)

Once upon a time there was a poor boy. Then, for a long time, he was a poor man. Then, one day, he was no longer poor.

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“Thank you! Thank you very much!” the man says as he clasps his fingers around the trophy with the numbers “2-0-1-7”. “I would like to thank my parents, my wife, my two sisters and their spouses, our two cats, the people at the vegetarian buffet, the people who pay me to help them speak English, the Taiwanese government that still allows me to live on their island, our friendly neighbours, and lastly, everyone on the internet who wrote such good articles this year that made me much smarter, and that enabled me to bore to tears even more people on social functions. I could not have done it without you all. Thank you again!”

The man seems to want to let go of the microphone to return to his seat. But then he adjusts his grip and continues.

“I can certainly say I have had a good year – as surely many of us can say.” He narrows his eyes to see if anyone is nodding their heads. “It is, however, a fact that I usually decide every year I’ve had a good year, regardless of how many times I fell flat on my face.” The usual tense chuckle follows. “Well, this year was no exception. It has been very educational. Two things stand out. No matter how long one tries to make a success of something, sometimes it just doesn’t work out. Maybe it’s because you’re stupid, or maybe because it’s something you subconsciously think is a waste of time. Whatever the reason, for a long time I thought if I stuck to something for long enough, I will be successful in a specific endeavour. Lesson one of this year is that this is not necessarily true. Lesson two has to do with value. Just because you’re convinced something has value … or maybe you’ve developed a formula that at first glance seems very complex that convinces you something is valuable is not to say you have to put your money where your formula is. Were you to do that, you may fall on your face quite comprehensively.

“There were of course many other things I learned, and not all these things required me to plant my mug in the mud!” Another chuckle. Then the man hears a few sighs, and he’s sure he’s observing a sudden increase in fumbling with electronic devices.

“Well, ladies and gentlemen – and all the genders in between, you’re all excited to celebrate the new year. I am too! All that remains is for me to wish you all a prosperous 2018. Look after yourselves, look after your loved ones – including your pets and your children, eat healthy food, exercise regularly, don’t waste your money but occasionally spend some money on something nice, and take responsibility for your own upcoming success. May the next year be one of your best years ever!”

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I am aware that this is the last day of the year, but I have been too busy until now with projects that I really enjoy to think about all the work I have done this year on projects that I really enjoy.

I saw my family twice this year – in February and in December. The first time was great. The second time was also very good, but also very special.

I also made enough money this year to still have some money in the bank.

And now I am going to rest.

For about an hour. Then I will continue working.

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