2021 the great unknown
.There is a popular cliché that says every ending is a new beginning. Will that same saying ring true of the transition from 2020 to 2021?
There is this popular 1999 film American Beauty. Starring Kevin Spacey and Annette Benning, the Academy Award winning film critiques the inner workings of suburban life in America through the lens of a married husband and father going through a midlife crisis. The black comedy, filled with combined hollow moments of laughter and sadness paints the picture of what lies beneath the façade. How one can totally think they have everything planned out and then at any second, it can all change.
The first few weeks of 2021 have brought unforeseen changes and expectations: an onset of violence brought on by racism and hatred at the nucleus of our nation’s capital. The possibility of a second strand of the deadly COVID-19 coronavirus. The anxiety of living one more day with a mask on, quarantined, virtual teaching and learning, one more zoom meeting; the list could go on.
What does the end of 2020 signify for the beginning of 2021? What does it mean to plan three months, six months, nine months, a year in advance when the next three months, six months, nine months, or year is unknown? There has been a lot of dialogue about living for today and living in the moment. Some may argue this is the impetus for the instant vacations, engagements, job resignations, and emergence of new projects.
Is the COVID-19 coronavirus global pandemic signify the beginning of the world’s midlife crisis? Is that why nearly every event that has happened since the beginning has been something unprecedented? These are questions that have been asked that no one has the answers to. Not doctors. Not political leaders. Not even parents educating about this to their children. No one knows what the future holds and as much as it appears to be the logical thing is to lean in and submit to that fear, there is still this conditioned urge to smile and remain optimistic.
Much like the world has been doing regarding racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, classism, etc. The interesting contradiction about equity vs. equality is that as much as one wants to lean into the propaganda that somehow everyone will be view as equal, when in reality, the human experiences aren’t bonded together through similarities, but rather differences.
