Remembering 2020

Dear Future Self, if our poor memory now is any indication, we will have a hard time remembering 2020, as unbelievable as that sounds now. The year that disease, COVID-19 and cancer, controlled. We stopped going to work, climbing, and going outside. But with all that changed, so much remained the same. And in no way is that more evident in what we consumed. I wonder whether our taste has changed much since.

Books and Short Stories

We read on and off this year, when we found the patience and wherewithal to actually sit down and read. Nothing long.

Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger. But especially the stories, Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes and For Esmé—with Love and Squalor. It has been said that some people grow out of Salinger. I wonder if that’s happened yet to you.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Dystopian fiction remains among our favorite genres and the dystopia of The Road did its best to prepare us for coronavirus. We read this in January when coronavirus was barely a blip on the radar and we still traveled. We were in Texas, visiting Houston and Galveston with friends. Space Center, offshore drilling museum, armadillo eggs. It was the only major leisure travel we did that year, though we did begin the year in Florida and the Everglades after a quick trip back to Indiana for the holidays at the end of 2019.

Exhalation: Stories by Ted Chiang. But especially the story, Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom. I wonder if we’ve ever finished that story about trusting trust that we had vaguely thought about but could never wring into existence.

Slapstick or Lonesome No More! by Kurt Vonnegut. Probably the best humor you read all year. It reminds us of Homestar Runner and the absurdist humor that are these self contained worlds and internal logic that emerge from the minds of genius.

How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence by Michael Pollan. Like Sapiens, this book makes the list because it actually changed our mind. We picked it up because we saw the headline of a study where psilocybin was being used experimentally to treat depression in cancer patients. Given the circumstances around cancer, we picked it up on a whim. Honestly, it was good that it was an audiobook. We probably wouldn’t have made it through otherwise. But listening to it was certainly worthwhile.

Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy by David Burns. We thought about not including this because we still haven’t finished it as we were reading it with others. But it is worth a mention anyway. It too has changed how we think about the world and it deserves an inclusion for that alone. Especially the section about guilt and forgiveness.

Music

While we listened to our old haunts, we added two other artists into the rotation, Jada Facer and Eminem.

Games

There were many regulars that we played this year: Smash, Starcraft, Overwatch, but this year brought about the inclusion of two old-but-new standouts.

Among Us by InnerSloth. We did not play this game so much as watch other people play this game. We probably regret watching so much Among Us.

Chess. We played in one tournament way back in elementary school where we failed to win a game by blundering an endgame and reaching a draw instead. We don’t remember whether it was actually a winnable endgame, but it probably was. This year, with the rise of streamed chess on Twitch and Youtube, we got back into chess, actually learning that first layer beyond the basics. We picked up some basic openings (we exclusively play the London on white and King’s Indian on black), some basic checkmate patterns (ladder some queens and rooks), and some amazing gambits. To close out 2020, we even managed to successfully pull off a Traxler Counter Attack against the Fried Liver attack.

Articles

Last but not least, here are some stories that were memorable from the past year. They are light, as is most of our consumption.

Climbing’s Little Helper

An old article that reemerged when President Trump came down with the coronavirus and was given dexamethasone as part of his drug cocktail. Paired with our lasting interest in mountains and it was an interesting read.

The Weirdly Enduring Appeal of Weird Al Yankovic

We still like Weird Al and his music. We never knew his story. It is a good story.

The Last Children of Down Syndrome

Supplies a thought provoking question. I’m not sure how we would answer if we had to. I guess that’s an appropriate response to put at the end of most of our thoughts.