This year has been a turbulent one, to say the least. Suffice it to say, for better or worse, the world has changed. I’ve never been a silver-lining optimist kind of guy, but I am pretty impressed with how humanity has pulled together and became stronger in these trying times. Disaster has brought the global community together, we have become completely unified for one common goal, something I have never thought possible in my entire life. I do have my worries though.

Not to contradict the wonderful work done by the staff, but I feel the need to be a little realistic. We are still in a bad spot. Just a few weeks ago, my own friend, who happens to work in the medical field, was threatened for antibiotics and other drugs, and it never really hit me just how truly desperate people and families were starting to get until my friend told me about this. People don’t have jobs, thousands facing homelessness, with a global death toll nearing another million.

And yet, I can’t help but be so thoroughly impressed by how we’ve been handling this because it wasn’t just the U.S. fighting this fight. The entire world came together to defeat this, and while the battle is far from over, it is truly inspiring just how far we’ve come in such a short amount of time. While 2020 may have felt like 10 years, it was still one year and one year to come out with a vaccine for a relatively unknown virus is truly remarkable. Scientists from across the world have researched for countless days with only one goal in mind. No motive for who can get it done first, everyone was constantly sharing data and cross-referencing others’ work making this one of the biggest global operations to have taken place completely voluntarily.

And obviously, the best thing to have happened in 2020, I’m talking about Gorillaz’s new album “Song Machine”, forgive me for geeking out but oh my god! This album is a musical masterpiece, each song being worthy enough for its own recognition. Gorillaz constantly changing the game in the musical world, each song being an experiment of its own that pays off every time. “Song Machine” is just the best thing to have come out of 2020.

And you know the vaccine and global unity and stuff but mainly “Song Machine” is what we should be grateful for.

Joking aside, times are tough and there is still a lot of work to do but everyone should feel proud of how much progress we’ve made, and not only that but how much progress we have made together, as a planet. In short, I leave everyone hopes that everyone has/had a happy new year and a promise that the suffering of today will always lead to a better tomorrow.