In the world of endless everything — algorithmic feeds that will populate forever, the horrors of war on a live-stream, the replenishing piles of glistening Texas Toast on a Golden Corral buffet platter — believing in the idea of a New Year feels like a cathartic rush.
And, listen, I’ve read Jia Tolentino. I’m acquainted with the trappings of self-optimization and have bought into them frequently — gloriously, even — despite this. I’ve believed in the promise of product only to become educated of its lies, cursed myself, and done it again a million times. The mission of self-optimization is a hamster wheel coated with Supergoop sunscreen, but so is the belief that we may rid ourselves of the impulse altogether (although maybe that hamster wheel is coated with the slippery pages of half-skimmed Buddhist texts). There are some lessons that I suppose I will just have to keep on learning.
The phone, for example. The apex evil. Cocomelon is lobotomizing our children and Madison Beer’s face makes girls want to kill themselves and so on. I’ve dedicated weeks to studying what The Phone is doing to our young minds and have documented my time spent without it. I’ve sworn it off entirely, convinced of its cancerous nature, and let it back in with simultaneous reluctance and glee more times than I can count.
Maybe it’s that I’m just not a “quit cold turkey” kind of person — it’s certainly possible. But I’m more inclined to believe that my real success lies in the idea of healthy pendulation, especially in the presence of something as ubiquitous as The Phone, or other similar trappings of modern life. I respect and admire the monks deeply, especially this one on Youtube of whom I’ve grown particularly fond, but I know that I am not willing to commit to the abstinence from modernity that such a life requires. So there is a negotiation.
I write about this idea in my essay about my mother and her bipolar disorder:
My growing comfort with living in the grey is a gift given to me by years of conversation with myself. Trauma changes the brain structurally. It creates rigid systems that work, by design, in black and white; safe and unsafe, good and bad, right and wrong. These systems keep you alive - they are important. And then, all of a sudden, they begin to calcify into pain.
Part of my emotional work has been in allowing pendulation — a moving between states, a neither-here-nor-there, a promise to return but not to stay. I’ve begun to think of my relationship to The Traps (internet, the urge to self-optimize, etc.) in a similar manner. Like my emotions, I seek to engage with them (and my corresponding habits) from a place of curiosity rather than judgement. I don’t live there, I’m only visiting.
I really enjoy making resolutions for the new year. In the past, my resolutions have been mostly based in destruction: lose fat, quit this or that unflattering or unhealthy habit, become more disciplined (forget your whimsy). I’m no longer interested in that framing. This year, I’m focused on creating and making space for the new. I’ve listed a few of my resolutions below. They are fluid and aligned with an imagined era I am inviting myself to enter.
note: i am experimenting with paid subscriptions on this page. i’m moving into spaces of slower thought and long-form content, both of which substack is great for. i want to write much more on here in the coming year, and a paid subscription model will help me do that. i will still regularly publish free pieces, but consider subscribing if you’re interested in more frequent writing from me, the advice column, some fiction pieces, and other exclusive stuff <3