Welcome to the Making Sense podcast.

This is Sam Harris.

Okay, well I want to say a few things about my hopes for the new year here.

Like all of you, I'm happy to get 2020 behind us.

But of course there's no guarantee that 2021 will be better.

Right, I mean these calendar dates are just concepts that have very little connection

to the dynamics of what is actually happening out in the world.

Apart from the tenuous connection of all of us hoping to reset our lives on January 1st

and which is not nothing but it's not a lot either.

As for whether a virus mutates or a hostile foreign power, hacks our government and major

corporations and steals or manipulates sensitive data, these things happen on their own schedule.

As you know, in both of these things, it appeared to have happened in the last few weeks

to what end.

It's not yet clear.

But it's natural and useful, I think, to use the change in calendar as a device to clear

one's head and attempt to get one's priority straight.

So like many of you, that's what I'm doing.

In fact, the madness of this last year has already helped me get my priority straight

or straighter.

I now have far fewer browser tabs open in my life.

And I think this will be true going forward.

There's a spirit of triage I now feel.

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