Can We All Stop Acting Like Any Of This Made Sense? – Poem
Somehow we have given a number a characteristic.
The same thing that we use to add up our checks and receipt we have given life to as if it has one.
This is not new.
Lucky number 7.
Unlucky 13.
666 – the mark of the beast.
Is there anything that is actually lucky about seven?
Why is thirteen less lucky than, say, fifteen?
And how the hell did three sixes come to represent the Devil?
I have no idea.
But I do know that we all accept this little factoid.
As if we learned that apples keep the doctor away.
You should look both ways when you cross the street.
And you should not talk to strangers.
Numbers have feelings.
They have emotions, and they should be represented as such.
Welcome in 2020.
Whenever something bad happens, we all seem to blame the number 2020, as if it holds some sort of strange power over us all.
Because that is the reason that this year stinks.
Not because of actual things that make it bad.
No, 2020 represents it all.
All the riots.
All the madness,
All the misfortune.
That is all on 2020, and 2020 doesn’t even mind.
If something does happen when you are with people, you will see a common reaction among people.
Oh, 2020.
The person shrugs off.
As if that explains anything.
It is awful (quote something strange that is bizarre)
Just the worst. (quote another thing that is also bizarre)
The whole world is crazy now and in a state of utter chaos.
Yeah….
Right….
Because all you idiots knew what the hell was going on before the virus happened.
You were all well-informed, thoughtful, kind-hearted giving people.
We all walked around like philosophers of the past, asking questions of our world.
Pondering the existence of this all and seeking a better truth for all of mankind.
Yeah, right.
We were all worried about what we could binge watch next on Netflix. (Cause we have watched all seasons of The Office enough already)
How many followers we had on Twitter. (Cause we don’t have enough)
And how to delete our search history without anyone knowing. (Cause that site we went to is one we’d rather not go to)
I am not saying that I am better at this, either.
That I am somehow some great saint, ready to have a prayer card for you to buy.
I’m not.
Hey, I am as selfish and narrow-minded as the next guy.
But I don’t go around acting like I found a higher purpose to life because of the virus happening.
The world will change after the virus.
Oh, you mean like it did after The Plague?
Or the Spanish Flu?
Or any other awful event in history?
Don’t give us that much credit.
We didn’t learn how to be better people when that stuff happened, so why do we think that will change?
We as humanity killed God, had two world wars, and almost blew ourselves up with nukes, but this virus, this COVID, is going to really change things.
Now we all become philosophers and better people.
I’ll go get my toga.
I don’t get this life, and the coronavirus hasn’t helped me.
I still have many questions, and I don’t have clarity of this world.
I don’t understand those who say that 2020 is crazy like a hatter, but then also that they found purpose from the awful event.
We are making a new world because of the craziness of our world? That doesn’t sound good.
All these people who are convinced that the world will change because of COVID either don’t know history, understand people or both.
People are assholes.
They were before the virus.
They were during it.
They will be after it.
History is just a long list of assholes screwing each other over.
The trick is that the guy who is telling the story never mentions that he is an asshole.
So you end up liking the guy because, well, he is the only guy telling the story, you kind of have to like him.
The other asshole he fought is dead. He killed him.
Luckily for us morons out there, there are a few good ones that do actually help.
That risk their lives for us all.
That are kind, good-hearted people.
So that you and me can go to CVS to get another pack of beer.
So we can check out our phone 100 times a day.
So we can wait in the drive-through at McDonald’s.
Because that is all that we want anyway.
To go through our daily lives where we eat processed food, consume too much television, and never have enough gas in our cars, with no problem.
People enjoy talking about 2020 in a negative tone because, yes, the virus was and is still very bad, and you should be cautious of it, but it also alleviates them of any responsibility.
You can unlike that button now.
You can unsubscribe from the channel.
You can go to incognito mode.
You are not to blame for the madness of the year.
You are not at fault.
In fact, it’s really like you aren’t living here at all.
All the problems of the world don’t affect you and your character in any way.
You are still an enlightened individual, despite it all.
Good for you.
We blame the year 2020 because years don’t talk back at us.
They don’t have an opinion.
What is the year 2020 going to get up and say to us that the year is doing really well?
Do you know what is going to happen after this virus is solved?
We will all go back to being the same schmucks and assholes we have always been.
We’ll cut each other off to get a parking spot.
We’ll talk poorly of each other at work.
We’ll yell at each other on airlines and crowded stores.
We’ll be selfish and only think of ourselves.
We are good at that.
We don’t have this figured out, no matter what anyone says of 2020.
This life that is more complicated than all the law books combined.
The life that is longer than your life.
The life that our brightest admit is too much for them to really grasp.
That is the life we are talking about.
We don’t have any of this figured out.
We aren’t even close.
If we were golfers, we’d be lining up our first shot on the first hole and thinking to ourselves that we are ready to put on the green jacket.
Come down there, Tiger.
Compose yourself, Phil.
Get to the green, Jack.
Let’s not all deceive ourselves by thinking we are closer to the golf title than we really are.
The best two ideas we have are that a being more powerful than us had his son come down from a place in the sky in order to teach us how to live, and we should all live like that.
Or that there is nothing out there in the universe, and we are here by chance and that our decisions and laws are predicated by the perceptions and views we hold as a people, and that changes over time.
Yeah. And those are our best ideas.
The ideas that we teach in schools.
That we write in books.
That we hold up to the stars and proclaim, the world cannot hold us down.
The world doesn’t have to hold us down.
We do a good enough job at that the way it is.
2020 makes no sense.
No. This world, this life, this existence never made sense.
We are all in denial about it.
I’m blaming 2020 for that.
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Greg Luti is an editor and blogger on pensandwords.com. He hopes that someday the number seventeen and three quarters gets the proper respect that numbers like one, ten, and 2020 receive. His favorite number is two.
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