Reflections on 2020

I see holidays as a great opportunity to revisit and learn about the corresponding historical events. So New Year’s Eve offers an opportunity to revisit what happened during the ending year.

A lot of good things happened for me in 2020. It was another year where my career got me to another nice place that I used to see only in the movies. I had a nice travel with friends, and even “married” some close friends! Developed many skills (especially in the kitchen), had many great personal experiences, and I feel that I evolved a lot. And after a total of 13 years navigating through universities, I finally completed my PhD, with great success and a good offer for the future.

We can see it from the math perspective expressed by means of that complex language of uncertainties called probability/stats, or through the awareness of the traps related to “What you see is all there is”, or through many other glasses, that only a few samples are not enough to characterize the whole. Specially if they are biased.

That also holds for 2020. From the personal side, the paths that lead to these successes, and the whole flip side of the coin, were more intense. With them, many exercises on the idea of powerlessness. Going through months without hugging or shaking hands with someone is tough. The stress/burden of writing a PhD thesis and defending it under time-pressure was, very likely, the hardest I have ever dealt with. Yet, this was nothing compared to what others have gone through, and were things that to a certain extent were still somehow within my control.

It feels worse when that’s not the case. When every day starts with statistics on people falling sick, and the news of human lives being cut short, before flourishing to their full potential. Things that were not new, but were augmented and brought to everyone’s field of view.

Or when some of the biggest fears associated with distance start to become reality. Family members, close friends in different places are mourning the passage of their most beloved people, and your options are offering your ears, maybe a few written/spoken words, but not that hug they really need.

A fortunate aspect was the opportunity to read more, as a shelter, an oasis in turbulent moments. From many interesting concepts I’ve learned, a highlight was learning the verbalization for a concept that I long believe, but didn’t know how to phrase. Amathia, the greek opposite for sophia (wisdom). A concept so subtly complex that it does not offer exact translations. With it, the idea that most people do wrong not because they are evil, but due to the lack of wisdom. And most cases are about an actual lack of opportunity, exposure, motivation to develop this ability. As I learn more about humans also to better teach machines, the recognition and admiration for our potential also increase, and reinforce this thinking.

Yet, it gets more complicated when you see the prevailance of a minority with the worst type of amathia: the actual refusal to learn. When dark yet fairly obvious predictions become reality in your homeland, with consequences even worse than you could imagine. You try to support friends doing the right thing in difficult times, and then you see then falling into the one of most dangerously human traps: use the majority as reassurance, comfort to do wrong.

There is a saying that knowledge/intelligence is a karma, that not knowing many things avoids not suffering about them. While some of these moments can be tempting to fall into this interpretation, I profoundly disagree with it. After reflecting and acknowledging that, above all, I have been much more fortunate than the vast majority, I think 2020 provided me with the opportunity to exercise and reinforce beliefs that have been guiding me, and I now have been getting to understand better. This isn’t for anyone to feel like they should think this way, this is a personal take. I do, however, recommend the exercise.

The more I learn about myself, about humans psychologically and biologically, the more I get to experience the beauty of nature in this planet, the more I appreciate my life. Actually, appreciate lives. Gratitude for living and living as a rational being arises from this understanding of the complexity and, low likelihood, for such things to happen. This gives me motivation to try reaching my full potential, and help others to reach them. To exploit my capacities not only for my best, but for the best of all surrounding me: not only family members, friends, but the very own nature/universe that conceded me this opportunity, and from which I’m a small, yet active part of.

So here are my wishes to everyone for today, 2021 and onwards:

  • may we have the wisdom to identify what is our control, and be active to do our best on what is within our range
  • may the universe bring us all many successes, and may we all have the wisdom, strength and courage to be resilient when fortune is not on our side
  • may we all have the courage to do the right thing, even when others do not
  • in all events, may we learn what can be learnt from them
  • may we all find our path to happiness, and may this path be shared by all important beings/things surrounding us