Twenty Twenty-Five
I’m ready to roll on the 1st this year. It usually takes me a week to recover from the holidays. We skipped our annual beach trip this year but we did manage to keep our tradition of sleeping right through New Years Eve.
In January of last year I wrote1:
Self-determination isn’t just some UN Resolution after WWII even though I could consider myself a minority under majority rule. A generous amount of research suggests that when people are motivated by autonomous values their outcomes tend to be more sustained while reporting a higher sense of well-being. I find it somewhat easy because my values prioritize just taking the time to stop and look around. So I’m putting the hammer down on just getting on with it and I’ll give you the synopsis if I make it through another orbit round the sun.
At almost the same time we were having our upstairs roof ripped off for what we called project 20252, Ginny defended her doctoral dissertation at Clemson. It took almost the entire year to finish the renovations3 and Ginny graduated in May wrapping up a four year process. Happy to report that those are the only two highlights.
A buddy commented last year after the tree hit our house that he wouldn’t have been nearly as settled having to undergo the long renovations. There were some challenging moments, but it’s really all relative. We sat last night and reviewed all of our images since 2020 trying to determine some key events and dates. Although it’s been a bit of a whirlwind, we just try not to get sucked up into it. Slow and steady turtle wins the race.
I stepped down from coaching tennis after the spring season this year. It took a lot of waffling back and forth. It was a great experience but I’m glad to put it behind me. I’m a bit less like a plow horse with blinders than a circling hawk mapping the terroir. I’ve found over the years that it’s to my advantage to keep my eye on the horizon.
I moved my office this year4. I say moved but in reality it was forced due to the renovations. Although it’s still a computer at a desk, I also changed its name from office to studio because it’s a bigger working space and I’ve added some new dimensions. I spent the last part of the holiday configuring some new old world tools for art. I think it’s partially because, like a lot of folks, I spent a lot of time this year learning, using, and building AI tools5 and I think the ‘old world’ is just to help balance it out. I think I’ve got about ten more years of computer work in me so I’m trying to surf it right below the crest so I can afford to retire.
We’ve constantly joked this last year about doubling down on the neo-enlightened stuff. I think mostly as a reaction to the rise of stupid, which has mostly been branded as anti-woke or woke is dead. It’s not. It’s just yelping with its last dying gasps. It’ll take awhile though and I’ve branded the next five years as the boomer bust. The markets doing surprisingly well was just symbolic of them still holding on to that retirement income despite the policymakers. They’ll eventually fold with age.
It’s sad though because my parents are of that age. Mostly I just try to be a steady ray of hope for them to lean on using a healthy dose of love and comedy to ease em into the reality of returning to the dirt. The benefit is that it’s really made me reflect a lot on what I’d like to do while I’m still on the sunny side.
2026 is the year that I find an inner balance that isn’t buoyed by substance or circumstance. The temporal things and activities keep me upright, but sometimes in tiny quiet moments of clarity I can feel a wavering unease beneath them. I think it’s likely just due to the circumstances beyond my control and most folks tend to use good ole’ fashion religion and traditions as their safety anchor. I’m comfortable afloat but I’d like to toss away the floaties. This isn’t just things, money, fat, caffeine, or even ego but also an exploration and reconciliation of my deep seated belief system. Here’s a quote I used in another essay this year from Hermann Hess:
“You are only afraid if you are not in harmony with yourself. People are afraid because they have never owned up to themselves. A whole society composed of men afraid of the unknown within them! They all sense that the rules they live by are no longer valid, that they live according to archaic laws — neither their religion nor their mortality is in any way suited to the needs of the present … These people who huddle together in fear are filled with dread and malice, no one trusts the other. They hanker after ideals that are ideals no longer but they will hound the man to death who sets up a new one.”
It’s the same individuation6 process of Hess’ Demian7. I just can’t feel entirely comfortable without harmony. I’m envious of those that can lean on tradition but I also know it doesn’t fit and that’s the first step. I’m not going hermitic or gnostic because that’s also not me, but I’m gonna put some effort into recapturing my attention from material distractions and substance.
My wife asked me where I see myself at 65 and I said watching birds and painting flowers I’ve grown in the garden. So that’s exactly what I’m going to do. We just put in an order for a load of bulbs and flower seed to go with the new set of paintbrushes on the way. If anything, perhaps my ‘job’ or purpose on this planet is to just share its beauty. And in that regard, here’s a photo from 1921 of Claude Monet in his Gardens at Giverny8.
Best wishes to y’all out there and I hope you have a happy new year.
- Twenty Twenty-Four – https://davidawindham.com/twenty-twenty-four/
- Project 2025 – https://davidawindham.com/project-2025/
- Renovations – https://davidawindham.com/renovations/
- Studio – https://davidawindham.com/den-studio/
- Artificial Intelligence ( Part 4 ) – https://davidawindham.com/artificial-intelligence-part-4/
- Individuation – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytical_psychology#Individuation
- Demian – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demian
- Giverny – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giverny