If you want to simply demonstrate the brittleness of life — even in the twentieth century — here are a few quick and simple examples . . .

• The Covid-19 pandemic (of course) and its many ramifications / changes

— working from home
— court battles over religious freedom and assembly
— masks — or no masks
— desolate streets
— shopping market shortages
— medical equipment shortages
— remarkable vaccine development
— shut down of stores, businesses, and industries
— the streaming of church services
— et al.

• The Suez Canal debacle — one ship blocked the entire flow of shipping traffic.
• The national elections and all of its events & ramifications
• The death Of Ruth Ginsberg and a new Supreme Court justice
• Significant decline in sport watching
• News & Journalism censorship
• Only the second time in recorded history the alphabetical list of hurricane names was used up – moved to the supplementary list of Greek letter names.
• The sudden and shocking rise of “cancel culture” and “wokeism.”
• The death of George Floyd
• The sudden rise of cryptocurrency
• Game Stop & Robinhood’s financial impact on major hedge funds
• Swarms of Locusts in Asia-East Africa-India-Middle East
• California wildfires — 30,00 acres / 90,000 people evacuated
• The hack of the Colonial pipelines and its impact on gasoline availability and prices
• The sudden rise of inflation to over 4% — food / gas / housing prices all significantly up
•  The rise of immigration — legal and illegal
• The rapid increase of streaming services
• Calls for defunding the police
• Death of Rush Limbaugh
• Death of Kobe Bryant — airplane crash