It cost a lot of people's lives with covid-19, riots, and fires.

Between threats regarding the beginning of World War III and Kobe Bryant's death in January, fires raging across Australia in February, the rapidly increasing severity of the COVID-19 pandemic in March, and the killing of George Floyd and subsequent BLM protests in May and June, the year 2020 has been nothing short of eventful.^[1] The first half of 2020 alone proved to be hectic, unprecedented, and at times disheartening. Yet, despite these events and the implications they may have for the world in heading into the future, 2020 is not an awakening that reworks the course of human civilization as we know it. Specifically, there are countless years within modern history alone that proved just as turbulent; such a feeling of desperation was simply brought about by a variety of different events. For example, in looking at occurrences within American history that could possibly rival the severity of 2020, 1968 comes to mind for many— especially those who have lived through it. 1968 was practically the embodiment of uncertainty and insecurity.^[1] Through multiple political assassinations like those of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, horrible acts of racism and violence toward black bodies, protests that ended in police brutality, and a raging war at the peak of its casualties in Vietnam, 1968 proved one of the most anxious and unpredictable years in American history. Moreover, such a reality contributes to general descriptions of the 1960s. According to one government report, issued in December 1969, “Whether one considers assassination, group violence or individual acts of violence, the decade of the 1960s was considerably more violent than the several decades preceding it and ranks among the most violent in our history.” ^[2] Anyone in the thick of it back then might have claimed 1968 was the great "awakening" that would bend the course of time itself, yet, today, it is often easy to forget that 2020 has its fair share of predecessors.

[P1] 2020 is an unprecedented year full of world-altering events like COVID-19 and the death of George Floyd. [P2] Simply because 2020 is incredibly eventful, a spiritual or social awakening is not necessarily in store for the future. There are similarly tumultuous years in modern history (like 1968) that possess attributes akin to that of 2020. [P3] There is no awakening in 2020.