What I Learned in 2020, the Most Gonzo Year on Record

Turns out being unemployed for almost all of 2020 might have been the best thing for me. It gave me an opportunity to use most the year to learn about myself, and what I learned in 2020 is indispensable.

1) If you don’t take the time to discover your true nature, you’ll never know what you truly want.

I’m a copier. Most artists are. We take what we like from those who’ve come before us and did it better than we ever could. I had degrees in marketing and film. I, of course, became a journalist. I thought I wanted to be Hunter S. Thompson, and I was doing my damnedest to imitate him on and off the page. Turns out I really wanted to be more like Edward R. Murrow, which is even more challenging given the media landscape in 2020.

I never took the time to actually search for and discover my true nature. Turns out I’d simply like to be a “fly on the wall,” able to observe the world as it truly is without allowing my participation or biases influence that observation into interpretation. Again, Edward R. Murrow, not Dr. Gonzo. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be the center of attention at times, like when I write for this blog.

2) Meditating and journaling can help with #1, amongst other things.

While I’m still picky about what contributors publish here, I’ve realized the value of utilizing this digital space as a blog, and not just for SEO purposes. For much of this blog’s existence, I’ve treated it like a digital newspaper. Only that which was worthy or relevant was published at Go Gonzo Journal. I even moved all my sports coverage to Foul Play-by-Play despite some of Hunter S. Thompson’s best work being sports coverage. And sports coverage is my favorite kind of writing.

I’m guilty of taking great pleasure in losing myself in advanced sports statistics and finding a way to make that exhaustive investigation something fun that’s worth reading. At least one of my friends says he likes it, but most importantly, I like it, so I should keep doing it. It’s kind of like that scene in either Where the Buffalo Roam or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, I can’t remember which, but Thompson’s attorney tells him “you’re not a sportswriter,” and he replies “that hurts, man.” I guess I take enough pride in being a sportswriter that I can do without all the other accolades and accomplishments.

Meditating makes me more aware of my feelings and their impact on my actions. The aggressiveness I inherited from my father (and it is an inherited trait) almost always undermines my actions. I was a mental wreck in every sport I played, destroying a tennis racquet each year I played in high school except my last. My rage is only useful when attempting to write in the Gonzo style, and writing is torturous enough to be enraged every time I try to do it. Now I know how to keep feeling my feelings and keep my actions from being hijacked by them, so I can act more logically and less emotionally.

3) I’m a better editor than I am a writer, and that doesn’t have to be a disappointment.

A great athlete on my baseball team once told me “you’d make a better coach than a player,” and it was actually a compliment, not an insult. I had an advanced understanding of the game of baseball at a very young age. I just couldn’t play it very well. I could tell you how to play it well, probably because of how often I was unable to do the things my dad kept telling me to do.

I’m also a better judge of talent than I am talented. I scouted my first MLB player at the age of 10 or so. Mason Tobin, a kid no one really saw as much of a ballplayer at the time, threw a pebble so far and so hard it broke my neighbor’s window from half a block away. We all thought he had hit something much closer, like some glass in a trash can or somebody’s patio light. The beating I received via plastic broomstick for associating with troublemakers indicated otherwise. But that day I discovered Mason Tobin had a big league arm. He pitched a bit for the Texas Rangers in 2011.

4) In the past, I exerted far too much energy on distractions I can do without.

I used to scream myself to exhaustion watching Minnesota Vikings football games, which given their history, is the single dumbest thing in the world to get worked up about. The franchise history is nothing but disappointment. They are perpetual pants poopers and creative losers. My life-long friend has tried to make me realize this for quite some time, and I finally have. But the Vikings’ weren’t the only distraction on which I exerted far too much energy.

Duke men’s basketball games used to leave me feeling like I had played in the game. No more, not since Zion. I seldom missed a Minnesota Twins baseball game. They usually play 162 of those fuckers every year, and each one would have me as worked up as the last. In 2019, they hit more home runs than any Major League Baseball club ever had. I didn’t care very much, and when they pulled the Houston Astros in the playoffs this year, I didn’t get worked up about anything because I figured their postseason woes would continue. They’ve now lost 18 consecutive playoff games, a record. I don’t get worked up about much anymore.

5) My favorite distraction is All Elite Wrestling.

The one exception is AEW. All the energy I wasted on less-entertaining distractions like baseball, basketball, and football, now goes into professional wrestling, and All Elite Wrestling to be specific. The same life-long friend who constantly reminded me of Minnesota sports ineptitude turned me onto the single most enjoyable distraction in my life: AEW. You might say, “but they’re not even competing; it’s all scripted,” and to that I say, “I appreciate good writing and good performances over competition.” Either that or, “have you even seen what these crazy men and women are doing?! They’re competing with Death himself.”

On Wednesdays, I watch AEW Dark on YouTube and AEW Dynamite on TNT. Last week’s Dynamite started with a Battle Royale that provided the best first 15 minutes of a cable television show I had ever seen. I was jumping up and down and screaming like Randy Moss was evading tacklers en route to the end zone, but for much longer than it ever took him to get there.

We are truly blessed. All praise the @AEW and the #AEWDynamite writers, producers, performers, and broadcast staff for the most electric first 15 minutes of a cable television show I’ve seen. You are all champions.

— Anthony Varriano (@GoGonzoJournal) December 3, 2020

6) Misery loves company, but miserable company makes for a more miserable life.

I’ve tried to make friends this most Gonzo year of 2020, but I just seem to be drawn to semi-psychotics. I had to cut ties with one after discovering he had attempted suicide shortly after meeting him. Worst yet he had me review his attempt at writing a recovery memoir, in which he blamed cannabis for his suicidal tendencies.

I ended another relationship with someone I truly enjoyed until he broke up with his girlfriend. He just wasn’t any fun to be around after that. It was hard to get him onto any topic that didn’t make him miserable, which made me miserable, and I’m plenty miserable as it is. I just don’t make my misery the center of attention. There’s not enough fucks for me to give other people’s misery when they don’t have the fucks to give mine.

7) People come around at their own pace, and pushing them on it just slows that pace.

In 2015 I tried to legalize and tax cannabis in my home state of Montana. I failed. In 2020, Montanans legalized and taxed cannabis. I might have contributed to raising awareness, but before I even submitted legislation to legalize cannabis in Montana, I had figured 2020 would be a better year to do so. My intention was to do all I could to prove to out-of-state funders that the Montana market was worth their investment four years later. I succeeded in doing so. But what 2020 truly taught me, the election especially, is that people come around at their own pace, and pushing them on it slows their pace.

People are naturally defensive of the biases and beliefs that make up their idea of self, or ego. They are as protective of their idea of self as they are protective of their actual self. But if you just let time take its toll on their ego, they’ll come around. Egos, like humans, can only accept being wrong and wronged for so long.