Happy New Years, 2019

Happy to see the back of that year.

It felt like this was the year that being an adult was just not worth the setting my own bedtime and paying my own taxes. News was terrible. Environment's hosed. White, straight, male-identifying cis people found new and disturbing ways to protest against their reputation by leaning all the way into it. So very tired.

The world became harsher and colder thanks to those in power here and abroad. What I wrote before might sum it up, everything was leant into harder. Darkness reached new depths, but there were some great lights that didn't blind as they lit up everything around them. In the end, though, my reach is small, ability to make changes to save the world nonexistent and knowing more is just leaving me more tired.

I need to read my own words and lean harder into SteamPulp ideals, perhaps. There was a wonderful thread by @psygeek in the closing minutes of 2018:

I am so tired of the Discourse around hopepunk, noblebright, and what the opposite of grimdark is. I understand that the use of -punk as a suffix dismisses what punk was as a cultural movement. I’m perfectly happy not to suffix punk. Twitter, @psygeek, 11:56 PM - 31 Dec 2018

But I DO what a shorthand way to refer to stories that leave me with a sense of being able to beat back both evil and entropy for a time. That leave me feeling resolute and able to dig me heals in to repel the next charge, or even make a charge my own self. Twitter, @psygeek, 11:56 PM - 31 Dec 2018

It goes on futher, read the thread. Stories that remind us. Tell us how things could be. I'll always enjoy Utopian fiction over Dystopian¹. The fight to get and keep a Utopia is one worth reading about; and one worth fighting yourself.

I donate where I can, money and time. I say sorry and mean it. I catch myself doing things and try very hard not to do them, and learn from people who point out things I didn't know. So... Professor von Explaino votes for Learning, to the surprise of no-one. The learning continues. Part of learning is sharing that with everyone else, learning is not selfish and not monodirectional.

I don't resolution anymore. But reflection, that's worthwhile I think.

As always, thanks for reading.