The Second Lost Year
Reflecting on a year that taught me the power of wisdom, the value of honesty, and the importance of self-respect.
“We tell ourselves stories in order to live … We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five.”
As I’ve watched the people around me, and around the globe, struggle desperately to make sense of one of the most confusing, politicized, and tedious years in modern human history, I can’t tell you how often those two sentences — the words of renowned writer Joan Didion, who left this world a little over a week ago — have come into my mind over the last two years.
I began 2021 with three simple goals: to tell stories that weren’t being told; to ask questions that weren’t being asked; and to seek the truth wherever I could find it in a time of ruthless confusion.
For the most part, I kept those goals and I’m proud of the work I was able to do this year. Still, I often found myself at a disappointing loss for words over the last twelve months. At certain points, I was stunned speechless by the cruelty and out-of-character behavior I’d witnessed in the world around me. At other times, I’d simply been pushed to the limit of exhaustion, unable to speak (or write) another word.
By sometime in October, I began to think of 2021 as my second “lost” year — much like 2020, three hundred and sixty-five days of my life had gone by; most had not been spent in the ways I would have preferred, and I could never have them back.
Still, it was not an entirely wasted twelve months. In the summer, I received an award from the Society of Professional Journalists for helping to tell the stories of minority-owned small businesses in Detroit that had been severely impacted by the pandemic. I also spent most of the year asking questions and demanding answers from the government in a series of Freedom of Information Act requests. That effort hasn’t been very successful yet, but I’m determined to keep working on it.
Beyond those very modest achievements, I will always look back on 2021 as the year that taught me some of the most important lessons I’ve learned in a long time: that wisdom is far more valuable than knowledge; that it is good to read the work of the Stoics in challenging times; that it is better to work with Nature than against it; that forced silence can be devastating to the human spirit; that honesty, compassion and integrity are rare and priceless human qualities; and that self-respect is the most precious thing someone can possess in today’s world.
I have never been fond of declaring New Year’s resolutions, preferring instead to set simple goals for myself or establish certain values to adhere to. This year, I am simply giving myself a few words to live by, in the form of another quote from an essay by Ms. Didion that is still as relevant today as it was when it was first published in 1961:
“Character — the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life — is the source from which self-respect springs.”
Happy New Year! See you in 2022.
— em