BEATING DEAD HORSES: Back when I still harbored entrepreneurial delusions, I thought I’d try my hand at cornering the market on nihilism. I hadn’t figured out what I’d make, exactly, but I knew what my corporate slogan would be. “Nothing Can Be Done.” Stark. Simple. Defiantly defeatist. What better way to launch a new business empire? If nothing else, I figured it would shut up Nike’s nose-to-the-grindstone optimism of “Just Do It.”
Somehow I never got around to doing it. Perhaps I lacked the courage of my pessimism. Or maybe life happened. I am reminded of all this — what could have been — when looking back at the year 2022. In my personal rearview mirror, last year seems like one, big, messy, undifferentiated smear.
On closer inspection, however, a whole lot managed to get done. And right here. And a whole lot of that was genuinely astonishing. Given the decided numbness some of us still feel — as dubious groundhogs warily emerging from our COVID bunkers — I thought it might be worthwhile to highlight a few.