On December 31 2020, I wrote the following post. I didn’t anticipate it would be predictive.
“I would like to think that with 2020 behind us we can look forward to better times. Maybe 2021 will be fantastic. I don’t know.
But there is no brain bleach to erase this year. This was not pretty. America did not perform well. We have lost our way.
It’s tempting to chalk it up to flawed human nature. But it’s not our biology that is the problem but the self-perpetuating flaws in the software. We extoll the virtues of monsters—from Alexander the Great, the conquistadores, Andrew Jackson, the J.P. Morgans, to Donald Trump. They come to power and rise to fame while countless mothers, teachers, poets, stewards of the land, and shepherds of genuine community, who develop wiser ways of life, are ignored or crushed.
We need to put our best people in charge and hope we can avert catastrophe but there seems to be no mechanism for that.
I suspect we will stumble along like we have for thousands of years. Human history really isn’t pretty either.
Thankfully there is wine and food—all the little things in life that make it worth living. As skeptical as I am about the future, there is always hope. The sparkling wine will be flowing here tonight.
Cheers and Happy New Year!
Exploring the Philosophy of Food and Wine 