The Weekend of Foolish Attention

Bit and bytes of the week

The word of 2023 is… I considered both the word of the year from a global perspective as well as a personal one and I landed on the words that encapsulate both. The word of year for me is reclaim and the word for the world is uncertainty.

Will Trump get convicted? Will the SCOTUS vindicate him? Will he somehow be elected again? Is AI a boon, a danger, or a disrupter? The hottest year on record, does this mean we’re doomed in five years to live underground like Morlocks? Is crime really worse or is it just videotapes of crime that have risen? Why do we still call it ‘videotape’? Are kids being indoctrinated by drag queens or is anti-gay rhetoric ramping up because of a push by the transgender activists? Will the massive ‘fuck you, guys’ move to transport immigrants to sanctuary cities that easily ignored the bitching from down south discourage immigration? Will the multiple wars end or will the massacre of everyone in the Ukraine, Sudan, Gaza, and Myanmar continue like the mass shootings in the US? Will the MCU ever find its way? What are the pronouns of someone you just met if you can’t determine them by what they appear to be? Are words really violence? Is gentle parenting the single worst idea in history? Are we all mentally ill or is the expansive embrace of that state become such a cool new trend that soon everyone will have a therapist instead of friends to talk to?

Lots of uncertainty and, as is typical, uncertain people tend to get anxious and pissy.

We have become so overwhelmed by uncertainty, so incapacitated by our moral relativism, that we’ve become incapable of distinguishing between right and wrong, or defending our values. Or forgetting what those values were in the first place.

Resolutions? Nah. Goals? Yup! While comprehending the practice of creating and committing to resolutions to follow in the coming year, it is not a task I participate in. Lose some weight? Pay off my credit card debt? Always doing that so what’s the point in reminding myself to more of it in 2024? I prefer to set goals for the first part of the year that are specific.

Among my immediate goals is to write a book of short stories. Last year I cranked out two books so I figure I have two more in me for 2024. My time here in Wichita has resuscitated my love for cooking for people (most specifically my family) so a goal for 2024 is to improve on my technique in cooking as well as expanding the foods I can successfully cook. I’m planning on culinary school sometime in the late Spring so getting some of that info up front is good research and tasty. I’m going to create mini-menus of stuff I’ve never cooked before and treat my family to my experiments (which may be a double-edged sword for them).

Here’s a resolution for you. How about a cessation of being a Karen? Yes, the popular meme states that a white woman of a specific age is known as a Karen but the qualities that qualify her so has nothing to do with her race, her age, or her gender. It is the almost pathological need to control the behavior of other people that makes her a Karen. A guy who insists that you speed up your self checkout because he has places to be is just as much a Karen as the woman who calls the police on someone for taking the parking space she wanted.

So, the resolution is that when you are suddenly gripped with the undeniable desire to instruct someone else how to behave, deny it. Shut the fuck up. Unless a parent is physically torturing a child in the aisle of a Target, walk away silently. Are you really that aggrieved if your neighbor puts up a BLM flag or someone decides they are a they instead of a him? No, you are not, so zip it. On the flipside, if you see someone being robbed or beaten or harassed on public transit, step in.

The world of humans is often beyond your control so we should all accept that truth with some grace.

Solid food for thought. Tom Hanks is sitting around a filmed round table with Robert De Niro, Jamie Foxx, Shia Leboeuf, Adam Sandler, Adam Driver—you know, an actor’s thing—and at one point he says “I wish I had known that this too shall pass. You feel bad right now, feel pissed, feel angry? This too shall pass. You feel great? You feel like you know all the answers? You feel everybody finally gets you? This too shall pass. Time is your ally and, if nothing else, just wait. Just wait it out.”

I don’t see it as a call to live things passively but more to understand the cycles of life, to take those things that are genuinely important seriously and let those things that are mercurial and momentary wash away like rainwater.

2024 will be a year of what is necessary. I’m going through all my stuff—furniture, clothing, art—and culling that which is not the most basic essential. I’m not looking to be a Spartan sleeping on the floor but I recognize that, at my age, I don’t really need more than one meal a day so the question is begged what else do I not need?

A documentary about what? Go. Right now. If you are in any way a fan of the Star Wars universe, go to Amazon and rent A Disturbance in the Force. It’s a documentary about the creation of the 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special starring the cast of the movie plus Bea Arthur, Harvey Corman, and Art Carney. I promise you won’t regret it.

Also, the billboard for the coming year. Years ago, a woman complimented me on being “youthful.” I misunderstood her and thought she said “useful.” Turns out I preferred useful over youthful. I like to have a mantra for each turning page and, for this next year, it will be a quote from Albert Einstein. “Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” Yeah. That’s the way to go.

---

Thanks for reading and commenting. Have yourself a very excellent New Year’s Eve and here’s to a 2024 worth remembering!