“This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper” are the most often quoted words of TS Eliot’s poem. As this new decade begins, we cannot be sure that World War III is going to be a reality given the amount of unrest international news agencies have been reporting. Environmental activist Greta Thunberg is certain that the human race will not go out with an atomic boom, but we are definitely sniffling to our own graves if we do not immediately act on reversing climate change.

Seems like dark times ahead, but let us all turn to Instagram and give thanks to all the good things we have been blessed with the past year. While at it, why not stick to our resolutions for the year 2020? Everybody knows that if an actor ever needs to announce “and scene”, his acting probably sucks because the audience needed to be told explicitly that the show has ended.

Therefore, if we ever need a kind reminder of how #blessed one is, we can only hope that he did not contribute to the world ending with either a bang or a whimper – he is off the hook if he has officially switched to metal straws, but literally nobody cares if he is “lucky to be alive” or “survived another year”. The world sure needs mediocrity right now.

This story first appeared in the December/January ’20 issue of Men’s Folio Singapore.