Happy New Year, readers! We’re a week in, and although I’m skeptical of the whole new-years-resolution thing, I’ve recently been afflicted with the typical New Year’s existential crisis (to complement the “I’m in my 20s” existential crisis), so I figured a bit of reflection and resolution couldn’t hurt. It’s not like I’m having a quarter-life crisis or anything… yet… but the best way to stave one off is to stay confident in myself and how I’m spending my time.

Looking Back at 2023

Honestly, the “what am I doing with my life” question doesn’t come up that often for me anymore because I am lucky to currently have a life that I really enjoy. 2023 was a great year! It was my first full year in NYC, a place where I’ve found I really love to live!

Here are a few of the things I did in 2023, in the order that I thought of them. I’m really bad at remembering things, so I’ll probably come back and add things to this later:

  • I turned 23. (duh.)
  • I started volunteering with Black & Pink NYC sometime around March or April, attended their holiday party in December, and then started planning a crossover event between them and my Quaker meeting.
  • I got a couch!
  • I traveled to Tanzania for two weeks to visit my girlfriend, which was really incredible. We visited Zanzibar and went on safari, and then spent about a week in Dar Es Salaam. It was one of those super special, once-in-a-lifetime experiences. When I think of the trip I still think of this sublime moment where, egged on by my girlfriend, I impulsively took a sunset swim near the port in Zanzibar; the water was glassy smooth and I swam up near where people had their fishing boats anchored and could see a ship in the port. It was peaceful and I was struck with awe thinking about how far I was from home. It’s of those moments I will always look back on.
  • I did some cool projects at work.
  • I did my volunteer training and first three shifts at the Friends Shelter on the Lower East Side.
  • I began my big read of The Eye of the World series.
  • I got to know some new friends, most of whom were all already friends with each other, so I guess I have a friend-group in NYC now? Which is nice :-)
  • I visited my friends in Boston a couple of times, my mom in Houston a couple of times, and my sister in both Hartford and Pittsburgh, including for her grad school graduation. I also visited an old friend in Minneapolis and had an absolute blast.
  • I also took a trip to Rhode Island with my girlfriend, and we visited a college friend there.
  • I was able to be there for my family after my aunt passed away. It felt good to have the means and favorable work situation to be able to travel for that.
  • Right after that, I went on my first cross-country Amtrak trip, which you can read about on this blog!
  • I served on my first Quaker working group, on Antiracism, at my monthly meeting, and was nominated and accepted onto my first committee, my monthly meeting’s Peace and Social Concerns committee.

As for me – who I am and how I’ve changed – that’s a bigger question that I’m not sure I know how to answer yet. I’m trying to think of who I was at the beginning of 2023. I think I was mostly the same? Although, I think this year was a big one for learning once again to carve out time for things that I care about, after finishing college and then spending several months recovering from the whirlwind of activity that was college.

It’s strange to think that I wasn’t a volunteer with Black & Pink nor the Friends Shelter a year ago, and I wasn’t nearly as involved in my Quaker meeting, to boot. Usually I see the way I spend my time as trending more towards drinking beer and playing video games at home. Maybe that’s the case, or maybe it’s recency bias at play, because these are big parts of my life that in 2022 were just… not. Or in the case of my involvement with my meeting, not nearly as big. It makes me wonder how I was spending my time back then. I think I was spending more time with friends from college and visiting Hartford and Boston more. Maybe I was working harder or spending more time with my girlfriend and her friends, but I don’t really think so. It’s a good testament to how our routines – to the extent that we’re lucky enough to have spare time after doing whatever amount of work we must to survive – tend to orient themselves around our priorities over time. It’s also a good testament to how recency bias always tricks me into thinking that I’m spending way too much time relaxing, or in this big slump, or something.

Intellectually I know that a dignified, healthy life simply involves a lot of relaxing, but it’s good to be reminded of that. Going on safari over the summer really woke me up to this fact because I wasn’t expecting the vast majority of the animals we saw to just be… relaxing. Apparently it’s a really big deal to go on safari and see the lions do pretty much anything besides nap; I had known that they don’t eat all that often but I guess I had assumed that they were always on the prowl. Nope! They pretty much nap until they get hungry. When they’re napping, zebras will stand surprisingly close by, relaxing also. It reminded me that I’ve learned this human, and especially Western, notion that we should always be doing something, and if something is relaxing, then it usually doesn’t count as “doing something.” In reality, our natural state as animals is relaxing. And then the big life events happen, or we get hungry for something and make them happen. That’s a lesson I want to carry into 2024: relaxation is good for me, and rather than fretting so much about what I think I should be doing, I can let myself be guided by what I want.

Music

I ended the year in a bit of a music slump, but not so much that I wasn’t able to come up with a list of my top 5 albums for the year. Plus, I went to some concerts this year that I wanted to put in the above list of things I did this year, before deciding to make this a separate section instead.

Notable Concerts:

  • I saw my favorite band, Sun June, for the first two times: November 4 with Caroline Says and Runnner, and November 5 with Greg Mendez (who I immediately became obsessed with) and Runnner. (Then, I promptly saw them for the third time on January 4, 2024 with Slaughter Beach, Dog.)
  • In February or March I impulsively dropped by the New Colossus Festival on the Lower East Side after learning about it on Instagram, just for one show at Arlene’s, and had my mind blown by Yo Diablo. So now I’ve got a pass to the whole festival in 2024.
  • In March, Shalom’s debut album came out! The release show in Brooklyn was a blast. Fusilier and Moon Kissed opened, I hadn’t heard either of them before and they were both fantastic.
  • In September, Dream Wife did a couple of shows in the US so I finally got the chance to see them in Brooklyn.

Though I didn’t realize it until I was writing this, I didn’t make it to Philadelphia at all this year. A lot of my favorite music comes from Philly so hopefully I can turn that around in 2024.

My favorite records of the year:

First of all, Sun June released their third album, and it’s amazing. I got to hear it all live at the two concerts they did in NYC in November, since those were some of the first shows they did after the album came out. I love it. But I didn’t even bother trying to rank it because, I don’t know, they’re Sun June. It’s pointless for me to try to compare them to other artists. Five stars from me.

As for the top five that I actually did rank, here they are as well as what I had to say about them on my Instagram story back in December:

  1. Black Pumas - Chronicles of a Diamond. I was late to the game with Black Pumas; I only found out about them shortly before this album came out. There is just nothing wrong and everything right with this album. Instant classic!
  2. Shalom - Sublimation. Most of y’all don’t know this, but I appointed myself president of Shalom’s fan club in between my 3rd and 4th time seeing her live. Really glad I got to go to so many shows while she was living in NYC. I don’t think debut albums are allowed to be this good, but Shalom doesn’t care about our rules.
  3. Dream Wife - Social Lubrication. I became a fan in 2020 with So When You Gonna. Once again Dream Wife has made fun, exciting, refreshing music that speaks to and defines the moment. I was so excited that they came to the US this year. The best live performers in the game.
  4. Vagabon - Sorry I Haven’t Called. It was a long wait for this album and well worth it. Vagabon never misses.
  5. Greg Mendez - Greg Mendez. I only found out about Greg Mendez a few weeks ago through Sun June; if I’d had more time with this album it would probably rank higher, and I know it’s going to define my winter. Plus, the melody of “Maria” is very pleasing to me as someone who at age 15 only listened to Counting Crows.
    • I’ll add: December me was right. I was pretty surprised to pull up what I had written and find that this one was all the way down at #5.

As far as tracks, I didn’t make a whole list, I just (correctly) pointed out that “I Got Heaven” by Mannequin Pussy was the track of the year and that they’re the most important artist in Rock music right now. I’m super excited for their album in the spring.

Transcribing that list made me really happy I am posting all of this, because it’s amazing how even a month changes things. Today, as the year is officially behind me and I begin to think of all of those records as ones that came out in The Past, I would probably rank them differently. It makes me glad I wrote all of that at the beginning of December, and that I’m writing a bunch more about my year now!

2024: The Year Ahead

Although I’d like to not worry so much in 2024 about what I “should” be doing, (one of my friends in Meeting shared some really wise words this year on letting go of “should” that have honestly changed my life) like I talked about above with the lions, I still think that goal-setting is a good exercise that makes it easier to then work time for those middle- and long-term goals into my routine. Plus, I’m reasonably good at listening to myself to figure out what I want, but writing it down makes it easier over time.

I was going to break down what I want into SMART goals, un-SMART goals, and then just general principles to live by. But then I read the Wikipedia on SMART goals and apparently they’re not all they’re cracked up to be. So I guess I’ll just throw all the quantified and un-quantified goals in a list together:

  • Get out of my music slump! I want to go to 24 concerts in 2024. I have a friend, Jace, who’s been doing this for years, and I like the idea. I’m pretty sure I went to at least 23 concerts in 2023 but now I’ll officially start keeping track.
  • I want to try 10 new restaurants near my apartment (leaving that intentionally vague) and cook 6 new recipes this year. I came up with this one well in advance of the new year. I get really intimidated about cooking new recipes so I’m picking a really modest goal there. For the restaurants, the main obstacle is just that I’m a bit of a cheapskate. I’m almost hoping I fall a bit short and end up having a feeding frenzy in December.
  • My girlfriend is in a sketch comedy group with her friends now and I want to write at least one sketch to submit to them.
  • I’d like to not worry so much about what I should be doing!
  • I’d like to post on this blog more! I’m intentionally not quantifying it because if I put pressure on myself then it definitely won’t happen. But I get a couple of weekly e-newsletters, one from Shalom, and one from a Quaker woman here in New York, and I really admire the fact that they’re able to write something and put it out into the world every single week. That’s amazing to me.
    • Part of this is that I’d like to not be too much of a perfectionist about my blog posts. The ones where I transcribe things I already posted on Instagram are a good step in this direction. I’m often held back by thinking I need to have a fully-formed idea before I even sit down to write, and then writing takes even longer because I compulsively re-read what I wrote for mistakes multiple times, before and after posting. I don’t need to do all that! As far as I know, nobody even reads this thing, but if you’re out there – or if you’re from the future when I finally start telling friends and family about this blog – then hopefully you appreciate me simply putting my thoughts out into the world, even if there are typos or something could have been more polished.
    • As for wanting to have fully-formed ideas that I think will be interesting before I even sit down to write… I hope that this year I will remind myself that writing is an excellent way to work out ideas in the first place! Of course I don’t want to post things that I don’t really mean, but I should let myself spend time with the little inklings to see what my brain does with them.
  • In that vein, I’d like to journal more often, and use my journal to work out thoughts rather than just recounting what has happened in my life. Recording what’s going on in my life is cool, too, but it seems like what I want more right now is more opportunities to play with my ideas.
  • More opportunities for play in general? More art, more boredom, more doing things without any idea what the outcome will be. More play!
  • On perhaps the opposite note, I’d like to put myself out there professionally again this year. I received some great advice in late 2022 or early 2023 that it’s important to always know what I’m worth, whether or not I’m really seeking another job. I still haven’t heeded that advice, so I’d like to turn that around.
  • More museums and more going on walks without a destination. I haven’t even been to the Met, for instance! I’ve now lived here for a year and a half, but it’s easy to fall into a routine after a little while and stop exploring new things. NYC has so much to explore, which is one of the things I love about it. This seems like a good time to rekindle my excitement about living here.
  • Cultivate friendships. This goal is always top-of-mind for me: perhaps even too much, as I then put pressure on myself and have trouble relaxing alone sometimes. That doesn’t mean it’s not a good goal. I’d like to cultivate my friendships this year :-)

Finally, some principles to remind myself of:

  • Time spent working towards my goals is never wasted.
  • Time is probably harder to waste than I think!
  • Relaxing is good for me and perfectly natural.
  • It’s good to do what I want, even if it’s not what other people want or what I expected to want.
  • I’m doing great! I’m young, I have very little responsibility to other people, I like my life. Life is usually really long and pretty good.

Hopefully I think of more of those that I can come back and add later. So far, they’re all turning out to basically have to do with not putting so much pressure on myself. Which is surprising because the word I picked out for my 2024 is “more.”

Last year, my girlfriend’s mom taught me about the exercise of having a word of the year. Although I already forgot what my 2023 word was, I do like the practice. This year I picked “more” because I like where my life is at right now, and I want more of… pretty much all of it. More exploring, seizing the day, impulsiveness, fun, but also more time with old friends, involvement in organizations I care about. More!

And with that, thanks for coming along with me on this big little exercise to reset for the new year. Even putting all of this down has helped me to see past the existential crisis part and get excited. So, thanks for being a part of that, whether you’re reading this in 2024, or 2025, or 2050. Not that this blog will exist in 2050. But maybe you’ll break into a cloud datacenter and steal the hard drive that it’s on, or something.

Happy New Year!

PS: Ins/Outs

It’s January 23rd, and I’m back to add my own ins/outs predictions for the year. I like writing these little lists :-)

I will probably come back and edit this as I think of things. I like to leave a disclaimer when I think I’m going to edit stuff because going back and editing posts seems like a blogging faux pas, or something. But I’m trying to embrace doing it anyways because it’s what makes sense for me. Anyways, here are the lists I promised.

In:

  • Freudian psychoanalysis
  • Animal rights

Out:

  • Gender essentialism
  • Astrology
  • Zoos