Where has this year gone? Time is weird. It seems like 2025 crawled all the way to the finish line and now 2026 is hurtling us at light speed towards....something. Who knows what. A lot is happening. Work is busy and more draining than usual. Everyone's on edge, including me. I've been fighting cynicism and nihilism, just like the best of 'em. I'm taking a cue from some old friends - the Stoics - and learning how to "love my Fate" through the study of ancient Hellenistic astrology. Yet again allowing the music of the spheres to connect the disjointed phases of my life and trying to find meaning in the chaos without getting too spun up about it. Just working my way through the Wheel of Time. The book series, I mean, not philosophically. There's 14 books in the series so I figure that'll keep my mind busy for a while. And then I'll move on to the Discworld novels or the Stormlight Archive. Probably both. Eventually, both.
Most of my writing has been offline. A lot of journaling, writing exercises, and outlining/world-building. I wanted to talk through my playlist of the year, because this is by far the best year for it. I think I still will, I just need to build up the momentum. I'm in a slump, but not in a slump. Maybe it's more like I'm in a shadow - and the issue isn't that I'm afraid of publicly writing what I think, I just don't think it matters anymore. In a way, that's a more dangerous thought. That's true nihilism. It's not dark and edgy, the things we do are just pointless and don't mean anything to anyone. I suppose that's where existentialism comes in - we create our own meaning for the things we do, we create our own "why." On the best of days, the idea feels empowering to me. On days - or months (or years) - where I'm going through the motions, it feels like it's one more thing to do.
Going back to the subject of time, I've been ruminating more on its slipperiness. The inconsistency of how our minds perceive it. I work with air-gapped networks and they all run off their own internal time-source. Some are more accurate than others. I don't wear a watch, so I often find myself in situations where I'm relying on computer screens or old-school analogs clocks to check the time. More than once this year, I've seen the time on a clock or a screen, panicked because I thought I was late to my next meeting, only to arrive five minutes early. It's disorienting. More often than not lately, I'm wishing for more time or to slow time down. But, in my experience, the only way to effectively slow time down is to be fully in the moment, like in meditation. Once your mind wanders, time starts flowing again. Only in rare moments have I experienced suspended animation during something I'm enjoying. Even rarer, still, is to experience it in the presence of another person.
I don't remember how I came across this song, only that it's upbeat guitar strumming sucked me in and the lyrics kept me there. It's a relatively short song - not even two minutes - but it encapsulates a bit of what I'm seeing with everyone this year. We're all very compartmentalized. There's this knowledge that something is very wrong but there's a pervasive sense of powerlessness. Jaded is probably the best way to describe it. And everyone - including myself - seems to be so focused on the next thing in front of us. Get a job, go to work, pay that bill, rinse, repeat. So much is happening and yet nothing is happening. I'd say we're all zombies but at least zombies feel hunger. I'm starting to shake myself out of this stupor, though. I want more. So much more. I want more meaning, more action, more passion, more excitement, more joy, more whimsy....more - dare I say it? - Hope. Is this what they meant by it being the Year of the Fire Horse? I feel this collective energy building, like a rocket or a geyser. At any moment, we're all going to blink and land in a whole new reality. The only question is - when?
With that in mind, I'm trying to frame the current doldrums as a period of rest. The calm before the shift. Alright, okay, Sun keeps coming up each day. I'm doing fine. I'm still alive, so I'm doing fine.
"I'm Doing Fine" Video
--------------------------------
I wanted to do a few mentions of things I'm loving right now. To keep myself from listening to news podcasts (which is not at all good for my mental health), I'm listening to more audiobooks. I like biographies, especially when they are read by the author. Recently, I finished listening to "The Vegas Diaries" by Holly Madison. It's quite fun and almost like listening to the "Girls Next Level" podcast. While some of her wording choices felt a bit trite and many of the metaphors predictable, I like her approachable writing style. It feels like she's telling her story to a friend rather than a flat retelling of events that occurred at the time. It's also 2010s nostalgic for me, in a good way.
I also just finished binging "Something Very Bad is Going to Happen" on Netflix. I'm torn between thinking that's a terrible name for a show or if it was a perfect name for what I watched. The show is atmospheric, had beautiful cinematography, amazing pacing, great acting, all the works. Camila Morrone looks fucking gorgeous in like every frame she's in, even when she's covered in blood (sorry, spoilers). It was heavy on the jump scares, which I don't like - but the benefit of watching on Netflix is that you can walk away or hide your face from the screen for a few seconds without the judgement. For me, once I understood where the plot was going, I could kind of predict the end but I think that's more because I was watching from a horror writer's perspective and knew that the story had to end that way (otherwise it doesn't work). Therefore, from my perspective, perfect storytelling, no notes. Because I like spoilers, I tend to read the synopsis/summary of the episodes on Netflix so I know what to expect - for the last episode, it simply says, "Something very bad happens." Very clever, Netflix. Ya got me, I loved it. So yeah - if you love horror (especially the supernatural kind), go watch it.
No comments:
Post a Comment