If 2020 was a three-act story, I hope we’re at the end of act II, when all hope seems lost, just before we rise up and win big in act III.
Act I was short, but act II made up for it with impact. The holidays behind us, mid-winter around us, and Australia literally in flames. News junkies might’ve seen some headlines about a virus in China. And then – like getting t-boned at an intersection if you weren’t paying attention – everything stopped. Businesses closed up, suspended, schools shuttered, there were more airplanes parked at airports then cars filling airport lots.
Thousands of people a day dead or dying, economic collapse, unemployment skyrocketing, the whole world in isolation. People with little money prior now have nothing, and those with pre-existing health conditions living in terror. The world, under these conditions, is dry tinder, and suddenly we see that the Australian wildfires foreshadowed what was about to happen.
George Floyd was that spark, and the cops in Minneapolis were happy to strike it. A world already pressurized by a global pandemic is now ignited by the short fuse of deeply rooted and systemic unfair human treatment. It cannot be a coincidence that a disease that attacks the respiratory system, prompting the sick to cry, “I can’t breathe” grips the world, while Mr. Floyd and others cry out the same thing.
As the world stands on the edge of even worse virus outbreaks, or not, and on the edge of civil reform, or not, I hope this is the end of act II and we can begin to nurture hope as the curtain rises on act III.
But each morning, playing catch-up with the news, act II clearly isn’t over yet. If you haven’t yet given up all hope, don’t worry – 2020 isn’t over yet.