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Last Year on Earth

Greatest Hits, 2020: My 15 favorite essays from my least favorite year.

Ah, so this is dystopia. As I annually do, I’ve curated a list of my favorite pieces from the year that was, each with a small snippet of director’s commentary.

In last year’s edition, I remember saying: “I initially wanted to cut this list to a Top-10, but, sadly, dystopia has been very good for business and has given me a lot to talk about.” Well, in 2020, we reached a level of hell that depressed me past the point of wanting to say much at all.

I wrote significantly less this year than I did in either 2018 or 2019. Instead I expended most of my energy merely trying to endure the irreconcilable — a global nightmare with two rules governing my proceedings:

1. Don’t catch the coronavirus.
2. Don’t run out of money.

I just barely did both. In a year of unimaginable hardship and grief, I know that makes me one of the lucky ones.

Along the way, I tried to put my thoughts to (figurative) paper and post these dispatches from the end of the world for what was left of the world to read along. Below the following stanza, I’ve scrounged what I believe to be my 15 strongest entries from our last year on Earth for you.