All I got are my good intentions
What I've got in store for 2020...
2020 got off to a cracking start, didn’t it? Between Australia committing climate suicide, in effect, and President Trump kicking off a war against Iran, we’d barely staggered home from our New Year’s festivities before shit got real.
And so, tired as all hell, we took various deep breaths and we hustled out to the streets to say: Hell, no. And who knows what’s going to happen, but at least we’re raising a little hell and making a little more good trouble, and in the end, that’s what we can do — for now.
So, with that in mind: I’m going to take a step back, and change the subject. I want to go over the past year — the past decade — and write down some things I want to do for the new year, so I can look back and see what I accomplished, and didn’t.
2019 was actually an OK-to-good year. Were there things that I'd want to change? Sure, and heavens know I've spoken of them at length. But that's part of the process of growing. Of becoming more self-aware, changing, and becoming a better version of myself. Of learning to accept myself, stop beating up on myself, and accept what I can and cannot change. I write and talk about kindness, love, and compassion, so here's the thing:
Approaching the world that way means that you've got to be kind to yourself and compassionate with yourself.
Lots of times, I haven't been. And that's okay. It’s a constant process, now going on almost 15 years for me, and - to crib Sam Hinkie - you've got to trust the process (sorry, I couldn’t help it!).
So: 2019. It was a year. Professionally, I started it at an excellent company - the same one I’d joined after the 2016 election. But as with all things, the time came to explore something else, so I left it. I’d wanted to become more actively involved in the 2020 campaign, and I had an opportunity to explore some things.
That exploration didn't work out the way I thought it would (I'm happy to talk about it, but not here). In the past, I would've absolutely flailed about like a Muppet on coke, worrying myself sick, but not doing anything to actually make things better; panic would’ve taken over.
Instead: I was deliberate in making my next steps. And lo: it worked out! I go into 2020 back in startup land, and keeping my good trouble-making to my personal life.
Will I go back on the trail? I'd love to, but if it will be, it will be. I have profound respect, love, and admiration for those of you who are, and I'm here for you.
Which brings me to the other part of this.
I am not here, writing this, if not for two things: random luck andd the patient love and forbearance of so many, many people these past 10 years who've supported me, listened to me, talked with me, spent their time with me, and been with me as I've continually fucked about and searched around and worked on myself.
Have I worked hard? Yes. No doubt. But that work doesn't pay off without that love and friendship and forbearance and patience. One of the most pernicious stories we tell each other in the myth we build of ourselves is that everything we’ve achieved, and all of whom we are comes solely through dint of our work.
But that’s not true. Certainly, not in my case. I’m extraordinarily lucky. If I don’t attend an anti-war rally three weeks after getting back from Iraq, my life takes a series of vastly different turns. And it’s not just luck in terms of being in the right place at the right time; it’s also luck in terms of the friends I made, who’ve shown so much patience and given me so many chances to help make a better world possible.
Thank you for all of this.
I'll close with this: next to their love, a person's labor is the holiest thing they can share with you. And when you can combine the two, you create something really special; I'll never forget all the people who've done that with me this past decade.
So, a toast: To friends and comrades, those that have dug the path before us, and those lost along the way. I raise a glass to you. Here's to the future, our victory is assured as long as we trust in the strength of those beside us, and they in us. Let this be the decade we fight for each other, tooth and nail, with love and joy.
Intentions
I’d like to read 20 books or so. I’ve got a stubborn habit of picking up books, reading them halfway through, or even two-thirds or three-quarters through, and then not finishing them. That changes this year.
I want to explore my creative side. I already attended an improv class on Saturday, and I’m going to be doing a lot more of that exploration as the year goes. Maybe I’ll join a choir, maybe I’ll take singing lessons — who knows?
I’d like to travel more to DC, Philadelphia, and Boston. Most of my friends are down in DC, and I keep saying I want to go and then not doing it. That changes this year. While I’m at it: explore more of the city. There’s so much to see and do in New York City, and I’ve not really taken advantage of it in the years I’ve lived here.
This is happening: a legitimate summer vacation. I mean, I did last year, but it wasn’t exactly planned!
I’d like to find someone to love. I’m okay with being by myself - what Emma Watson called “being self-partnered”. I made that decision after my last relationship ended. I needed to work on myself some more, so that if I had to be great, I could be, as the song goes.
But that decision, that lack of interest in a boyfriend/girlfriend/life partner (let alone a husband or wife or spouse) doesn't really mean that I'm uninterested in intimacy or love; to the contrary, I'm very open to those things. I just have no idea how to find them, and our current system of apps is actively hostile to it.
I want to be more physically active. I’ve let my interests in archery and rugby lie fallow; I’m going to pick them back up, and rejoin the groups that allowed me to pursue them.
Cooking! I am, at best, an extremely mediocre cook, barely able to put a meal together. For a guy like me, that’s not going to cut it. I have a decent kitchen, and it’s time for me to put it to actual use.
Finally: I’d like to be a better friend. “The beauty of being human is that you are not easy to review, like a book or movie, and you’re not for sale anyway. Your qualities aren’t singular or fixed but ever-transitioning. You are a work in progress, light and dark, going through a process called life, which is happy and sad, good and bad, complex and fraught, not to be reduced to a ratings game or a one to 10 scale.”
The current cultural discourse encourages us to consider friendship as an investment, a stock we might dump when it tanks, and I can’t think of anything worse than that. The above quote is from this lovely essay, and it’s the kind of thing that really hit home for me.
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