New systems

With new things happening so quickly last year, it was often like I was swimming upstream. I’ve moved, started new jobs, and tried to juggle a number of creative projects.

What I realized was that, for starters: There isn’t enough time. But, in an attempt to make it make sense, I looked for systems that could assist me in keeping on top of everything.

And this required building infrastructure.

As I go through this year, I’ll elaborate on them. Omit some, gather others. I need some time to reflect on each individually, and measure how they work for extended periods of time.

Another New Year

For most, 2025 was another in a line of several unusual years. It seems that since the pandemic, each year brings new challenges, new opportunities, and new …

As I work on my Year-In-Review, it occurs to me that I’ve allowed this blog to sit fallow, which I suppose was partly because I’d been looking for something to say.

How do we talk? What do we say? The climate is incendiary, and maybe we’re failing to rise to the occasion.

That is to say, none of us really know what we’re doing. And that’s my starting point.

Happy new year.

Inefficiencies

If everyone was efficient all the time, they would be nothing different about about anyone.

No diversity. No uniqueness. Just pure efficiency, over and over and over again.

And where’s the fun in that?

Overdoing it

I gave up overachieving, yet still find myself saying yes to myriad things. Time and again, it’s easy to say yes. Especially when a certain structure is lacking.

Not that it’s bad to say yes. Just make sure it’s something you’re aligned with.

Otherwise, you’re just going along to someone else’s alignment.

Poetry captures a moment

As we’ve moved into the era of photography, social media, and connectivity, we’ve moved away from poetry.

It was the verbal expression of a snapshot of time. A beautiful, or heart-rending, or even common moment.

Now, we have a way to experience the moment of someone else, and poetry is consumed less. But it is still out there, doing it’s best to capture the ephemeral.

Thieves

Watched a movie recently (Sidekicks, 1992). In it, the character played by Mako calls something a thief – a thing that steals from us when we rely on it.

And I began thinking of the smart phone. If it’s the first thing we grab in the morning, what is it stealing from us?

The mess up there

It’s messy in my head. Like, there’s a lot.

I scribbled down the thoughts that were taking up space – the main ones, not the superfluous ones, the ones on the periphery – and I filled up three pages.

Walking the tight rope between overoptimization and letting go, it’s probably just easier to fall.

Quite frequently, I think, “Start from zero.”

What would wiping the slate clean even look like?