Contemplation

Contemplation of a Year

We’re a few days away from the slow, downhill slide to Christmas and the finishing of another year. I’m already thinking of what will be written in the days ahead, wrapped around the travel that Emma, the kids, and I will be doing. It’ll be a mad rush, to be sure, as a lot of miles and keypresses have fallen underfoot in the year since I started more actively writing.

In a way, these various different platforms have each contributed their own special jolt to my system; enabling me to start thinking out loud and in print, using photographs as devices of interest and curiousity, and building the narratives of the already-known and unknown.

It’s been maddening as well. The significant churn of tools and enablers, the stochastic terrorists of X (neé Twitter), the uncovering of the despotic dreams of some of our social platforms and their enablement of bad actors and mis/disinformation, etc. The list goes on. No one single platform does it all perfectly and it’s been a journey to find a ritual, a pacing, a workflow that accomplishes what I feel I need.

Travel has been a key cornerstone of our conversations this year. It started with Iceland and it’ll end somewhere in the northern hemisphere this year as well. We’ve journeyed to places together that, had it been a decade ago, I’d not imagined myself to ever be there. We’ve done some incredible things, seen some incredible shit, and discussed (insofar as these platforms allow) how our humanity touches on each. Ah, but there’s always more.

Next year promises to be interesting. I’ve dropped hints here and there, told stories of courage and boldness, and tried to inform us all of those things that lie ahead that we should look out for. I’ve driven the carriage you see above, if you will, delivering what I hope amounts to wisdom and wonder for you to consider. If you’ve found resonance, that’s all I could hope for; if you found none, that’s completely ok as well. We’re all on different paths headed towards our collective inevitabilities.

Life gets funny in how it’s all composed together. It’s a bit like a jigsaw puzzle that changes as it’s put together. Today’s scene becomes something different tomorrow, and the next, etc. We’re assembling it all as we go along, hoping to look back across the long table of time and see, finally, what has emerged for all our efforts.

Regardless of how we have all arrived here, to this portal of information, story-telling, and whatnot, I’d like to suggest that it was for a purpose, perhaps beyond our rational understanding. We’re gravitating towards the wells of hope that nourish our souls. These days are…challenging from all perspectives and we’re parched. We’re seeking to sate our souls with something, anything, that allows us to gain that next step, that next footing and breath.

I don’t know all of your stories and, I’d daresay that amongst the follows here and elsewhere, I’m privvy to less than 1% of them overall; a poor fraction of what I view as a community of grace. In the days, weeks, months ahead, I’m hoping to change that, tiny step by tiny step, so long as you’re willing.

Let’s purpose to end well this year and embrace the unknown with as much temerity as we can. Perhaps something incredible will happen along the way just as you all have been my incredible this year.

May it ever be so.