Deliberately looking ahead to 2023
Wow, the movie “Shrek” didn’t lie when it introduced a generation to the lyrical warning of Smash Mouth, declaring that “the years start coming and,” evidently, “they don’t stop coming.”
We’re at the start of the brand-new era of 2023. I swear, I’m amazed every time they’re able to come up with a whole new number for the year we’re going to be living in, though — I must admit — they do sound increasingly made up when I heard them out loud. One of these years we should mix it up and bring back one of those tired and true numbers. (To me 2004, 2007 and 2010 seems like solid candidates, but to each their own.)
For a long time, I would keep a list of all the things I want to do with the arrival of a New Year. I’m not going to do that for 2023. While there are certainly things I do want to achieve this year (like publishing another book) I’m going to try to move ahead with a theme I wish to pursue rather than a set of tasks. I want to try to be deliberate. Specifically, I want to be deliberate when it comes to enjoying my down time.
The clearest line I can draw is to reading and writing. Since college, my reading and writing habits have been all over the place. These things I would do by default in middle school and high school have become things I usually need to make myself do. That’s not entirely a bad thing — at the best of times, it can mean that I’m deliberately making time for what’s important to me.
At the worst of times, though, I’m not reading or writing because I’ll be playing a video game while listening to a podcast about a movie or show that I’m also in the process of watching (usually not actively at that moment, but don’t rule it out). Again, that’s not inherently a bad thing, I’m all for listening to podcasts while gaming or doing other activates. But for me it can mean I’m harming my own enjoyment of the game or podcast, by dividing my attention. Rather then letting my senses have a break after a long day by focusing on one thing I enjoy, it can sometimes feel like I’m bludgeoning myself with stimuli.
That’s also made me more frenzied even when I do commit to an activity. For example, I finished reading about ten books this year (a far cry from the dozens I’d read in a given year while in high school), but I have at least three other books I’m legitimately enjoying that are sitting on my bedside — each of them 60% finished. Now, I’ve always been in the habit of reading multiple books at once and often rotating through what I’m reading even in the same afternoon, but my “in progress” pile is not normally this persistently large.
Similarly, I have three books that I’m actively *writing* to various capacities. One of these is the sequel to “Light Keeper Chronicle,” another is the adult fantasy novel I hope to put out this year and is in a state I’m considering mostly done at the moment. But there’s a third book in the mix that I’ve been working on that I should probably back-burner so that the other two can get more attention.
The same, to different degrees, can be said about my T.V. shows, podcasts and albums. I think I’ve been doing this in part as a coping mechanism to deal with a stressful year, but also out of a desire to experience everything that everyone is excited about in pop-culture. I still need to watch the last episode of season 4 of “Stranger Things,” why did I stop on the last episode? Who does that?!
I think the only exception to this has been movies and live theater. Mostly because I saw a decent bit in theaters, free of other distractions, and just sit down for 90 to 192 minutes and enjoy what’s in front of me.
During my time off work, I sat down and play “Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands” and, for the most part, didn’t listen to a podcast or have a YouTube video going in the background; I just played the game. After that, I made some headway in “The Crooked Kingdom.” Normally I have classical music playing while I read, but the back end of my reading session happened unaccompanied and I found myself feeling really relaxed and content.
Prior to this I had been enjoying both the book and the game well enough, but I hadn’t let either of them have the space to breath in a way that let me fully engage with them critically.
The next morning, I sat down and fiddled with my electric piano, refreshing myself on music I hadn’t touched in years and why I miss playing instruments.
This isn’t revelatory, I think most people know a being can enjoy things more when they, you know, take the time to enjoy them. Nonetheless, it’s something I realized I haven’t been doing enough of.
So this isn’t a promise that I’m definitely going to read more books, or finish more shows, or take-up the piano again — like I said, I just want to make a tacit agreement with myself in 2023 that I’m going to be more frequent in enjoying the things I enjoy.
Hopefully this is just a younger-Millennial/Gen-Z problem or, better yet, just a me problem. In any case, I hope you reading this find the time to enjoy the things you enjoy to their fullest in 2023!