To Stay
Lessons I learned in 2023—Part one of three.
I could list an absolute myriad of things that the events of last year taught me. It was a big, bad year in my life, a year of "character development" as they say.
I imagine it to be the same for many other people, maybe some of you, being still amidst a period of "revenge" this and that, attempts to make up for those lost years, being still amidst a spiral into the eventual collective mania that will be this new year and the rest of the decade ahead.
Alas, I don't wish to belabor the point, but so long as it needs to be said, I will—loss is reality, and so long as we breathe, we only stand to lose more. There is no making up for it, there is only accepting it, and in that way we can eventually fill up the emptiness with what ought to be there and flourish in its stead.
2023 was a year of navigating a vast sea of loss. Here are the pieces of driftwood I picked up along the way.
There is a gospel of quiet that's slowly been spreading, you’ve probably heard it, felt the need for it yourself. It’s an anti-"hustle culture" movement that's righteous but fragmented, perpetuated by the same algorithm that got us in this mess, the same mechanism that just as quickly dilutes then disappears whatever it touches. "Stop normalizing the grind", it says, but how is anyone's guess. It's "back to work" and "yes, sir" shortly after the commotion.
Beneath however many layers of smart irony it comes caked in, it is an ugly cry for help.
I think quiet doesn't simply come to those that want it, not these days. It has to be invited, made into a good friend, given attention—ironically, listened to. I think we fashion our lives, our society, as such that we block it off, purge it even, we're made to believe it's our enemy. So when the silence gets too much, we f**k right off where it's louder, more exciting, stimulating.
I found there is dignity in staying in place, a quiet place out of reach from man or machine, and in looking at its ugliness, its overgrowth, and saying "This is wonderful, at least it could be. This is enough." For some of us, the last sanctuary of quiet that remains accessible might not even be physical: maybe it’s an untouched recess in our mind, probably the same place where secrets remain just that.
That was me last year, actively detaching, staying in place when life was shrouded in darkness, to fight, to recoup, to rebuild. That place of quiet expanded and grew out branches, out of my mind and into reality. Some of you are part of that. And it started with staying—watering, coddling, watching intently till those first dew-drenched buds of spring.
Someone once said to me when they were feeling bad, and I suggested they stay at home and figure it out, that they "couldn't think of a worse thing". They went outside shortly after. And I don't wonder where they are now. They're back at home, where all paths eventually lead.
You? What do you make of home? In a world of nomadic (wayward) tendencies, where do you call home? Where do you plant your flag? What, who even, is there, waiting for you to come back?
“There is much to admire, though, in a dedicated recluse.” –Yoshida Kenkō