
40 lessons from 2020
Yeah I know. A calendar is a construct and 31 is a number etc. etc. but since I like a bit of ritual and reflection, here’s a quick and dirty list of forty lessons I’ve taken away from this clusterfuck of a year.
- The human race is fragile and resilient in equal measure.
- We are a speck in our species’ evolution.
- It’s easy to lose sight of this when you are mired in and overwrought with sadness.
- Staying on the fence isn’t always impartiality. Sometimes it’s preservation.
- Talent emerges from hard work but also privilege.
- Literary magazines don’t give a shit about your high distinctions.
- The human body can reduce itself to a shadow and still refuse to die.
- Pre-grief is a slow leak.
- Loneliness is a vast emptiness that few understand.
- Stasis is another word for survival.
- If you can’t write, read. Then try again.
- Most of my fears are in my mind. That doesn’t make them less real.
- Family isn’t a fairytale. Sometimes, no one is coming to save you.
- You can scare a dragonfly to death.
- The makers of Fitbit are responsible for a sizeable percentage of the world’s landfill. And they know it.
- Compression is the bane of my existence.
- I pared that sentence back.
- I watched a lot of television this year and I’m not mad about it. .
- Reading makes you a better writer.
- If you don’t make room for what’s possible, you can’t possibly expect it to arrive.
- Everything is a construct. The calendar year, time, our age, the names given to us. Status, wealth, social expectations, behavioural responses, psychiatric designations. Some of it is useful. Much of it is not.
- We’re all going to die at some point. Some of us, much sooner.
- A magnolia in full bloom has less life expectancy than a butterfly and it is, in fact possible to think about this too much.
- The internet can convince you that you’re a terrible person.
- If you read my search history, you will learn how to identify the colour persimmon, how to save a tomato plant (tip, you can’t), where Mina Loy was buried and what constitutes an overdose.
- Social media is a misnomer.
- Get in there and help, or shut the fuck up.
- Educate. But also
- Online vitriol does not add, it subtracts.
- The opposite of what you know is also true.
- I wrote over 100,000 words this year. Approximately 85.4% of them will never see the light of day.
- Most of us don’t breathe properly.
- Scotch is surprisingly, pretty great.
- Motherhood doesn’t end when your children become adults. It begins.
- Watching figure skating is valium for the soul.
- It takes approximately 90 days to break an addiction. Today is day 76.
- The only reason one should become an artist is when they can’t bear the thought of being anything else.
- Silence is the first creative act.
- Astrology is subjective. But so is everything.
- The body always knows.
It’s not always easy for me to exist in this space, so regardless if you’re a reader or a passer-by, thanks for being here.
See you on the flip side. x