Almost two years to the day since I wrote my last newsletter, so I don’t blame you if you forgot this existed. I was reminded a while back that this existed, so I figured I’d dust this off (read: forgot my password, ran into 5 Heroku application failures, and several “We were unable to save your draft. Please try again.” error alerts. Great to see that enshittification has also reached this place) to serve as a late Christmas card of sorts.
I’m still Lan, and I:
If a year’s success is measured by the amount of media consumed, I’d consider this a moderately successful year. If it’s measured by life achievements, I’d still consider this a moderately successful year. There’s a meme I saw about a cinephile lamenting that they didn’t watch enough movies on their deathbed, and I can’t help but cringe thinking of that whenever I look at that last stat-point.
I always hate the last week of the year, any year, because it’s the one time of the year where I really feel the movement of time weighing down on me. The compulsion to finish as much as I can and wrap up whatever I can before the new year rolls around hangs over me even though I know that the routines and movements will still be the same when I cross over into the following year. I don’t think I feel the passage of time as much as this any other time of the year, even on my birthday. But hey, it beats having to deal with seasonal depression, right? Right?
I think I’m at a weird point in my life, where it feels like the signs (read: the older folks in my family) are pointing towards me moving on towards that next era of my life, yet I don’t feel ready to leave this one just yet. It’s a bit annoying, because I feel like I’ve accomplished a lot of the things a guy my age is supposed to have achieved by this point, but I also don’t feel ready to move on yet. It’s an extension of that year-end anxiety, feeling like there’s more I need to do; more ground I need to cover before I’m fully satisfied and ready to move on. But time continues to move ahead, with or without me.
All this to say, I feel like I lost a certain hunger this year. In trying to keep everything in my life balanced, I sacrificed a certain drive and settled. I’m still not sure if that’s a bad thing though; I just feel like that hunger I had in recent years wasn’t really there this year. I don’t really even have the energy to hate the way I used to (which is probably why I’ve weaned myself off Twitter this year too). I need to find that hunger that pushed me to try all the things I did in past years and got my ass moving (and hating).
I want to find that hunger again, especially as the world powerslides into oblivion. 2024 wasn’t bad, but it feels like the preamble for a much worse 2025. Maybe I’m overreacting, and maybe it’ll just be more of the same but in a different flavour, but I can’t shake the feeling that bad things are on the horizon.
2025 is gonna have to be the year to lock in, strengthen bonds, and face whatever’s coming. I’m going to need to find that hunger again in 2025.
Happy New Year, happy holidays, free Palestine.
- Lan
I’ve found out that I can’t actually update the header or footer I made from before Buttondown got enshittified, so if you wanna find me, you can do so:
The next time you see me in your inbox, it’s probably not gonna be with Buttondown.