Twenty Twenty-three
I’ve written up a couple of years in review essays and since I like the process, here I am doing it again. I like the title because it implies some sort of 20/20 hindsight which is most likely not the case. My 2022 review was fairly chin-up given some of the circumstances. Thinking about it now, for me 2023 was pretty, pretty, pretty good. I took some trips, coached some tennis, got a new dog, and tried to enjoy my work 2. Writing these out seems to be a good way to reflect and shake out some overarching themes.
While riding in the car yesterday, I told my wife how much I’m starting to enjoy self-deprecation. It’s so easy being your own public relations agent that we all seem to do it. I texted my friends joking about my lame eve plans and how I wouldn’t likely make it till midnight and could barely knock out a split of champagne. I left the champagne unopened in the fridge because I’m now easily downed by a half bottle of wine. No worries, I opened it for breakfast this morning. I think part of the key for self-deprecation is that I’ve noticed in my interactions with others that I’ve stopped worrying about myself and I’ve started thinking more about them. I think it takes a good bit of effort to reach this stage, but it’s definitely the way to be. Stop thinking about yourself.
I hit the big five-o last year and seem to be rolling into my fifties fairly nicely. A couple of days ago, a friend of mine texted a group of us that his father had passed which is the type of reminder I think we all need every so often. Personally, I’ve prioritized maintenance mode for my body and my attitude on this has shifted dramatically since my brother passed. I feel like we’re all still struggling with a type of infantile object permanence. Nothing is really permanent, not even our memories, and accepting it is part of what makes life fun. I’ve certainly stopped thinking that there is an imaginary finish line or goal and started looking at it all as just a process. Albeit a bit abstract, my first year in review essay in 2019 was on the money for having this attitude. Be here now.
I always scan through my photos about his time of year and I think that “whoa, look at how young we looked” is a relatively common experience for other people. A really interesting concept to me is the idea of change blindness… if you introduce small changes to something that we regularly see, like ourselves in the mirror, they mostly go unnoticed. Except of course that balding spot you can’t really see on the back of your head. I first saw mine in one of those security cameras at a store and had to raise my hand to make sure it was me I was looking at. I think this same sort of change blindness is also in play on a larger scale in relation to a sort of collective negativity bias. There was some recent press about a series of surveys that determined that 77% of Americans thought crime was going up while it actually decreased across the board by pretty good margins. My best explanation is that it’s a consequence of the information age and ‘if it bleeds, it leads’ sorta attention economy.
The situation in Gaza and Ukraine, or the hideous state of American politics don’t help, but my opinion of them thrown into the void won’t make a ripple. I won’t even mention that we had the hottest global temperature on record or the second and third-largest banking collapses in history. Even though some of the data shows improvement, I don’t necessarily think things are getting any better, but I also don’t think they’re getting worse. I just think they’re changing. I’ve made a real effort to stop applying my own bias to stop framing things as good or bad. I mostly try to disengage so that I can focus on what I’m able to control.
I’m already ahead of my taxes this year since we had to make some small changes related to the better half taking a new position. I was able to do some additional charitable work which is always a good reminder of how fun work can be without the deadlines and negotiations. I had some good glimpses of why I enjoy computers this last year with AI. Most of all, I’ve stopped thinking about work and money in terms of stuff or competition. I’ve started thinking about it in terms of time and since I know that my time is invaluable, I tried to prioritize just trying to enjoy my work.
I’ve got some challenges ahead this year. My first contract of the year is going to be a doozy in that it’ll require a heavy amount of learning and work. I think I’m gonna try to learn to get the most out of my brain without the morning coffee. I’m also wearing my body down, mostly from the heat and sun, trying to keep up with the kids on my tennis teams so I think I’m gonna go ahead and try to line up some younger assistants to help pull some of the weight. My parents are getting on up there and instead of dreading the inevitable, I’m just trying to enjoy them now. The better half has a pretty heavy load with her dissertation, so I’m gonna see if I can double down on the cooking and cleaning so I’m sure I’ll be adding recipes here soon.
I’ve got a couple of cool things coming up. We’re headed down to Charleston for the rest of the week. Our twentieth anniversary is this fall. Ginny will be defending her dissertation and we’ll get her a new car and take a trip to celebrate. We’re also going to be renovating our upstairs bathroom which means that I’ll be building out a new workspace in our den so that Ginny can take my office and hers can become a walk-in dressing room. I’m going to gear my new workspace a little less of an office and a bit more towards a studio by adding in some old fashion atelier tools and some new-fangled multi-media tools6. I’d like to re-learn the piano and some new audio/video production stuff for fun. Although it’s fun to have those carrots out there in front of me, I try to remember to take it day by day.
2023 in a sentence… I tried to stop thinking about myself, learned to live more in the now, focused on my locus of control, learned to enjoy my work, and just let it all happen. So let’s all just try to ignore the bullshit, cherish our time, enjoy our work, let it roll, and make the best of 2024.
Best wishes to y’all out there and I hope you have a happy new year.
Right on,
David
- 2022 in Review – https://davidawindham.com/2022-in-review/
- 2023 – https://davidawindham.com/2023/
- 2019 in Review – https://davidawindham.com/2019-2/
- Age 50 – https://davidawindham.com/age-50/
- The Value of Time – https://davidawindham.com/the-value-of-time/
- Notes/House/Studio – https://davidawindham.com/til/notes/house/studio