The passing of the calendar year into 2025 came without much fanfare for me. But I must admit, I’ve not been in much of a celebratory mood.
I have wallowed, instead, in a mire of depressive thoughts; all of them revolving around a central point of emphasis: I have not yet done enough. I do not deserve this life yet. I have not yet delivered on my promise.1
This latest bout with depressive reflections comes from a promise made in the summer of 2023, when my mom declared that age would 30 would be “The Year of Ben.” That somehow the end of the third decade of my living and the opening of my fourth would prove itself a blossoming thing.
What I have come to realize is that, despite my best intentions, I’ve not much watered this metaphor for life. Hence the motivation and blog posts about culling responsibilities, refocusing myself and finding a new flow state.
In some ways, I consider 2024 to have been a more successful year. I was able to routinely blog, more consistently work on Patreon, as well as come up with some creative ideas that have excited me and pushed me to write even more. Add in the fact that I enjoy continuing my hobby of baking and have made some great progress on more skills with my contact staves and I can say that my sanctuary
In other ways, I still struggle. Mostly with the follow-through, the flights of fancy, the dogged pestilence of procrastination. I think it most shows in the random switch to movie reviews late in the year. Not that I’m one to forbid myself from writing about a thing; I like to think I have just diverse enough a knowledge to critique a piece of media, it’s just an issue in letting those fancies take me past my bearings and beyond my schedule.
Moreover, I’m not fool enough to claim myself some expert. I’m just reading the cursory news, watching investigative journalism and indulging the knowledge of historians and art critics and storytellers and comedians as much as anyone might when they are severely underemployed.2
There’s a certain inherent woe in this failure but I’m not inclined to beggar myself in search of pity. Pity doesn’t pay rent. Moreover, I’ve already written about the troubles I experienced while writing professionally.
Rather, there is only resolve. A resolve to see it through that I do not, in fact, need to write for anyone but myself and the people who find that interesting. For that reason, I’m drawn to an Umberto Eco quote on the matter.
“I don’t believe one writes for oneself. I think that writing is an act of love—you write in order to give something to someone else. To communicate something. to have other people share your feelings. This problem of how long your work survives is fundamental for a novelist or a poet. One hopes for a sense of continuity.”
I think his words are largely correct, but I take umbrage with the idea that someone would not write for themselves. In many ways, I write because I want to give others a view into a subject and because I want to give myself peace of mind, fleeting though that may be.
For that reason, instead of declaring resolutions, I’m setting myself some challenges for the next year.
- Write at least one short story per month.
- Bake something new once per month.
- Finish archival duties for alumni association by October.
- Apply for master’s degree program by January 2025.
I think these are all doable. I’m sure there’s something to be said about how master’s programs are a little more fluid in applications and that I might be able to find something sooner rather than later. But I’m not going to push myself into something I am not 100% committed to doing.
What’s important is that I begin writing these short stories and finishing them rather than sitting on a half-complete copy because I didn’t time it for the perfect release date. What’s important is that I continue to carve out a safe space for myself to enjoy hobbies without feeling an obligation to write. What’s important is that I continue to cull and finish responsibilities that have plagued my mental state for far too long.
I just want to focus on writing stories, baking, playing the odd video game with friends and continuing my education. I want to spend more time watering my life with something else than the salt of tears. I hope that’s resolution enough to celebrate a new year of improving every day.
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1 It’s a promise that I have long suffered since receiving my undergraduate degree in 2017. There was a time when it seemed like graduate school was inevitable and that a professorial profession was a conclusion. However, I’m not much concerned with that anymore. It took 10 months to realize that I have not nearly the patience to teach and since then, I’ve been searching for a sense of purpose forever.
2 In some ways I joke that I’m the demographic profile of a certain Luigi Mangione. The wandering, aimless, careerless young male who has some vestige of talent but serious ethical issues with the way American society has come to organize itself, unable to square my skills with a market need that doesn’t leave me wanting more. Unlike Mangione, however, I don’t have a stomach for violence.
The Casual Ramble 