The Year to Come

What I'm looking forward to

First, I finally wrote the Hyperparasocialization piece I've been meaning to write for months and it's published on Merry-Go-Round Magazine. I really enjoyed writing it and I think I did a good job with it. 

---

I'm going to be writing a couple year-end wrap-ups that I'll publish next year to give everyone a buffer from the deluge of year-end lists. I find it silly how early all the major publications put their year-end lists out and this year was the earliest slate I can remember. How many years will it take these places putting albums from the previous year on their current end of year list before they course correct? The click economy supposedly demands you be the first to go live but I think people would be just fine waiting until January to see what the underpaid Pitchfork freelancers thought was good. A lot of you probably don't even give a shit about year-end lists at all — why rush?!

But that's not what this post is about. I'm writing here about what I wish to do in 2024. 

On November 20th I was drinking wine by myself in my apartment and I was approaching inebriation. I will have a glass of wine while I cook, but rarely do I drink beyond that alone because I find it kind of sad but mostly boring and wasteful. Drinking and being drunk is a social activity, to me. But anyway I was helping myself to more than one glass and I was thinking in silence, another thing I don't spend much time doing. I almost always have some form of distraction in my ears or eyes —music, movies, random bullshit on the scrolling apps— but this time I was just letting my mind wander through the stillness. And I took advice my dad had given me three months earlier: write a list of goals you want to accomplish in Los Angeles. I have never been a goals oriented person because I have been a lazy, undisciplined and uninspired person for the great majority of my life, too crippled by fear of failure to even find anything to fail at at all. A sad and sorry way to live that I'd grown sick of. So I got to thinking and then I got to writing, by hand, in a notebook, like some ancient druid. It was wonderful; I really thought —seriously— about what I wanted, what I feel is important, for me, not what I imagine other people might think I should want or should feel. Reflecting without worrying about how others see my reflection. 

A couple weekends ago I mentioned to my friends that I had written this list (I don't remember why, but it was not out-of-the-blue unprompted). Alexio asked me what I wrote and I immediately felt frozen and embarrassed and so I deflected, saying, "That's private," with an annoying little snarky smirk. This was twofold: first, I am unlearning but have not yet unlearnt the impulse to shield my emotions from those around me, especially loved ones so bad habits took over. Second, I realized I could not recall most of them, at least not right away. But given a few seconds to think more while Alexio said "I knew you were going to say that," I challenged myself to grow, right then and there and I shared one or two from the list. I can't remember which, but I did it. I'm going to share the list which I'm now realizing is an even ten (happy accident) but I'm censoring the first one because, well, I have not fully unlearnt. 

I will not accomplish all these next year and that was never the point. The point is to do the work without fear of the result, to not obsessively check the scoreboard.

Some 2024 specific goals:

-Get published somewhere new

-Ski more than I ever have in a season

-Watch 100 movies. Yes, I'm on letterboxd

-Read 24? books. I haven't settled on a number to plug into Goodreads. This year I've read seven so 24 seems like a quantum leap but I need to challenge myself on this. Follow me on Goodreads too btw

-Meaningfully change my relationship with my phone. I don't know how I'll measure this but I think in the spirit of the goal it will be a vibes based assessment 

-Widen my cooking horizons. I cook most nights but it's usually the same one or two things. I have not gotten sick of them and they're delicious but I'd like to have a wider variety of things I've mastered

-Fully, fully furnish the apartment. I want it to truly feel like my home

Some 2024 things I’m excited about:

-Going to Canada. I’m going to Banff with a large group of friends for a week to ski; I’ll turn 29 when I’m there. The one downside to this trip is that Dune 2 comes out while we’re there but the movie won’t be out in Canada. How are we not doing unified global release dates for major motion pictures yet?

-Going to New York. I’m going to be in New York for almost two weeks in June, which will be the longest I’ve been in a city I don’t live in in I don’t know how long. 

-Baseball season. I honestly don’t know what to expect from the Padres this year but rest assured you will hear all about it. Their season starts in South Korea which means at 3am on a Wednesday and Thursday in March I will be waking up to watch baseball. 

-Completely ignoring the 2024 Presidential Election. Not my problem, sorry! Also, it won’t be nearly as funny as people are expecting it to be. Trump no longer has the juice and Biden is a Madame Tussauds Tulpa. They will not have debates.

-The UEFA Euros and the Olympics. I love international tournaments; they are fun :)

-People finally realizing that AI is not everything it’s hyped up to be and it begins to fade from the spotlight. 95% of the billboards in San Francisco are about AI. I am not exaggerating — you can go see for yourself. All of the people in charge of AI are not smart enough to accomplish the things they say they will. They assume it will just sort itself out; there are no more visionaries in the tech field. NFTs, Metaverse, self-driving cars: add AI to the pile.

-Boy’s Days

If you have any recommendations or advice or if you want to share your goals I'd love to hear from you. If you reply to this email it does not reply all, I can promise you that.