Getting right into the recap, I started the year seeing a new direction approaching. I alluded to it directly, in fact. But of course, the plan at that time isn’t the plan I ended up following. I had applied to another position in Tesla that fit my skills and desires, plus a coworker in that department put in a good word for me. To this day, I can only theorize why I never even got an interview. At the time, it was frustrating to feel stonewalled while seeing others being offered mobility. I also had the backing of my bosses to try and elevate me as well. It all amounted to nothing. The end was in sight. Opportunities are no longer being handed out, they require something I lack at Tesla. It’s a mystery what that thing is, yet it ultimately doesn’t matter. My options were holding onto a position that would only sour with time or taking more risks on something else. I looked first at more Tesla positions, but it seemed they were not looking for my qualifications at the time. Perhaps I could have tried to find more doors to knock on, but there was also a fear of prolonging a cycle I didn’t want to follow.

Most people my age are accustomed to constant job changes. My whole spiel about my two year cycle is not incredibly unique. Perhaps the most unique part about it is how the growth was more like a catapult rather than a gradual line. Since leaving Finsanto in 2020, I began to put my sanity on a higher pedestal than ever before. My work-life balance began to shift at that point, which was also influenced by life changes making me more of a workaholic…but mostly just at work. Nonetheless, I was making choices that valued more calm, but also pushed myself to maintain that calm. Applying for and taking the job at Tesla was a risk and took a lot of work. In fact, those first 6 months didn’t really count as calm at all. Yet, I felt it was leading to something I would enjoy. For one, the money was a lot better and would continue to improve. Money is not my goal, but not having to worry as much feels good. There are still some worries, but all feel solvable with good budgeting. I did mention the desire for a house last year, but the reality is that I wasn’t happy to settle where I was.

Tesla wasn’t panning out. Texas is becoming increasingly partisan. And I don’t mean just to one side, I mean it’s a battleground. Even as I am more sure of my political lean, I don’t feel like living in a battleground. Again, my sanity is more important than ever before. With all that in mind, I chose to up and move my life to Washington state. An undertaking that is the opposite of calm. To be clear, I only chose to move because I looked at Tesla’s competition and decided I would work at a company like Rivian. How right I was. It took one initial interview to gauge my goals and skills, a second technical interview, and then a third interview with a manager to get me hired. I’ve had fewer interviews that lead to a hire, but I’ve never had three in short order that lead to an offer within an hour of my last interview. And I’ve never really negotiated the offer before, but I knew moving would be difficult without a stipend to help cover the costs. The initial offer did not include a stipend, but one was added after my recruiter had a meeting about the very topic. With all that in writing, I took maybe an hour to think about it, chose a start date I felt I could achieve, and signed on. I am now a Rivian employee.

This was in early April. I started the year being a little scared of getting stuck and arrived at making a plan to get moving in just a couple of months. My start date was in early June, so there was enough time, but not a lot of time. From that point on, things progressed strangely. A combo of immediate action, some procrastination, a lot of being scared, and learning to keep going.

My exit from Tesla was received well in the sense that people were happy for me, but truly sad to see me go. I was sad to leave as well. Regardless of my frustrations with my career at Tesla, my coworkers and friends were not a problem. But choosing my sanity meant some difficult choices. I’ve been talking a lot about work so far because this is all my life has been at this point. Work was beginning to worry me, then work catapulted me across the country, and now work has changed drastically in just six months. There are other details in my life outside of work, but most of what has happened is due to work changes.

The other dimension of leaving Texas again is once again distancing myself from family and friends, including my own father who recently moved back to Texas. My father even asked if that was the ultimate goal. This is a fair question. Rivian has a service center in Austin, offering positions similar to what I am working now. Why wouldn’t I just apply there and save myself the hassle? The truth is, since my short stint in the Olympia area in 2017, I haven’t been able to get Washington out of my head. The trees, the grey days and frequent rain, plus mountains and nature I want to experience. I always wanted to be back here. In fact, it could be argued that I’ve been captivated since visiting Oregon for my brother’s wedding. There was a different vibe that I was drawn to. If sanity is indeed so important to me, this is the place I might foster it. The truth is, don’t meet your heroes, but it does at least satisfy most of what I wanted.

Getting back to the moving process, it went surprisingly well. I loaded up a little trailer onto the truck I purchased back in March and set off across the country. Speaking of which, a new truck! While I love the Honda Fit, I felt the need for something more substantial. I bought the Ford Maverick before I chose to move, but I had been feeling the winds of change and the truck was part of that. And certainly, it made moving significantly easier. There was no way I’d be pulling a trailer with the little Honda and I did need that trailer to get my things moved. The actual trip went off perfectly, no problems the entire way. Managed to do a little sightseeing along the way and listened to an audiobook along the way that started a lot of new thoughts and understanding. How To Stand Up To A Dictator by Maria Ressa is a fascinating and terrifying look at how media is targeted by governments looking to control rather than govern. But that’s a different essay to write. The point being, I’ve turned that first book into quite a few more that I’ve read, one of which is actually quite relevant for my plans this year.

Once in Seattle proper, I spent a month in a long-term hotel while searching for a place to rent. I started my onboarding and first couple weeks at work in that time as well. I found a nice half of a house to rent, moved everything into that home and out of the hotel. I was ready to start life anew in Seattle. And then I went to Alaska!

After my brother and his family moved up to Alaska a couple of years ago, many designs were made to go and visit just to see what Alaska is like. And it happened to be 2025 that we got the plans finalized and tickets bought. And so, with my life still in boxes, I took a two week vacation. Truly a different year, 2025 was.

Fairbanks, Alaska is gorgeous. I loved seeing all the nature on display, a community of people proud to live there, and a sun that never really set. It felt like a different world, much more serene and genuine than many other places I’ve lived. Not to the point that I’d want to live there, but absolutely worth a visit. Besides that, I had a wonderful time getting to see my family after a pretty wild month. And really, that was the goal the whole time for me. I never feel like I get to see my brother enough as it is, my sister in law is kind and always great to talk to, and my niece and nephew are just plain fun. I could go on, but just know that Alaska was extremely relaxing. Also, it’s really cool to see the sun at 2 am, but I’d never know how to go to sleep, even with blackout curtains.

Returning back to reality in Seattle, the work continues in regards to making home more livable. Movers brought all the remaining items and there are still boxes to this day that need to be opened and organized. Many plans exist for improving the situation, but finances and general cleanliness need to reach certain thresholds. Nonetheless, it continues to feel more like home. Work is gaining momentum as well. I’m finally learning all the names, getting my bearings on how the trucks work, and setting goals for my future. These goals included the second shift schedule and ALL of the available training I could get. I wanted to work second shift because I was originally hired for that and the pay bump is quite good, but also because the other people who wanted to work that shift are good techs and fun to work with. Little did I realize where that would get me.

Late summer is pretty boring overall. I’m just working and trying to get my life in order. The switch over to second shift happens in late September and now I have the day for doing things. This is honestly ideal, because it’s crazy to me that most people have a regular day job and have to try and fit in other responsibilities with that. But it’s not ideal because a lot of cool things happen when I’m at work. I had designs to find live music in the area for just hanging out, but that all happens in the evenings. Weekends exist, of course. I just enjoy the midweek stuff more. What I’m reminding myself now is that I can still do plenty of other things during the day, I just need to look for it! There’s a library 5 minutes away, for example. If I like quiet things so much, I should do them!

Of course, the changes are not slowing down. Even when I think things are settling, there’s always more on the horizon. So it comes to pass that my lead on second shift has decided he’s fed up with his job, primarily for pay reasons. I’ve been seeing more and more that salary is a common point of discussion both for political and personal reasons. I’m grateful for my salary and have been for a while. I have been saying to people for a good while now that it took a long time for the money to match my ability, so I try to live up to that. I want to be worth what I’m paid, though that can also be a dangerous mindset. As I said earlier, money isn’t really my goal. It is a tool to achieve goals. Of course, I have to use that tool wisely and have good goals, which is a different process.

So, my lead has decided to leave his job on good terms. And of everyone else on the shift, who has been the most responsible and open to being active with leadership? Well, I think you know where I’m going with this. In less than a year after leaving a job in a low level leadership position, I have waltzed right into another. Truthfully, I felt this would happen eventually from the beginning. Something I glossed over in the summer is the fact that Rivian has gone through two layoffs since I got there. Leadership positions have been changing in the company, all the way from shop leaders to regional managers and beyond. We have a lot riding on a new car that’s due out in 2026 and more pressure is being put on performance and efficiency. I have lived this life before. 

I accepted the position because it allows me to work from a larger picture. I enjoy getting into the nitty gritty of details on repair, but it is more satisfying to help others see those details in their work. I talked to my old boss about being given the position and the first thing he said is that it’s in my blood. I see that more and more these days. And I want to avoid hyping myself as some sort of technical savant as well as amazing leader. It is much more of a groove thing, where my strengths work best. I have taught three technicians my tips and tricks for alignments and two of them are now what I would consider experts, the third is getting better and better every time.

I’m not the best technician, but I want to make my techs the best. To me, it’s not about being in charge, it’s opening the toolboxes everyone comes with and pointing out what tools to use and giving them new tools to keep. Bit of a corny metaphor, but it is true.

And then Winter came.

The end of this past year has been more difficult than many others in recent memory. I was recognizing that I felt overwhelmed and did basically nothing about it. I’ve been reading quite a few more books as I mentioned before, some of which left me thinking. Thinking to the point of burdening myself with problems. On top of that, I had a truck that kicked my butt for a couple of weeks and the turnaround from that moment took a long time to arrive. Besides that, I became too engrossed in work. Life at home was being turned into more and more of a monster because I would pile on worries and annoyances and not address them. I can say this now in 2026 because I finally started to see what I was doing to myself. I was a ghost from Thanksgiving to early January, existing only when it was convenient.

I won’t go into details on the escape because it’s only just begun and the book that helped me make sense of my actions is still not completely read. It’s strange to say that a book is what gave me the perspective I needed. Although, some perspectives I’ve gained from reading are driving me to some changes I plan to make in 2026. The first and most prevalent is the elimination of social media from my life, starting with Facebook. I recognize that Facebook gives me access to so many people who are far away from me, but even thinking about Facebook is troubling. And if I do actually get on, I find it’s too easy to scroll and scroll looking for updates from people. What I actually find is ads and algorithmically chosen posts that I didn’t ask for. No longer.

With that said, I’ve been working on my WordPress blog to make something of a monthly update section (or tagged posts) along with the irregular essays. I already didn’t use Facebook to share much and my experience with trying to find posts from my friends inspires little confidence that people would see my posts. And besides that, I don’t think a large corporation deserves to know who I talk to and what I’m doing. I’ll explain most of the details some other time.

Writing this essay has been incredibly difficult for me. The end of the year left me feeling empty. I drained myself despite filling my life with so many things. It’s been hard not to hate myself for struggling so much. If you’re wondering why I’m so vague about why I felt broken, it’s because I’m still figuring that out myself. Simply put, what I actually did fell far behind what I wanted to do. The root cause is yet to be determined.

I’m a fixer by nature. I see problems I want to fix and I either do something about it or I don’t. Some fixes aren’t worth working for, but many are. Some fixes are obvious and others are unclear. What I mean is this year was characterized by me seeing problems to fix. I put a lot of pressure on myself to perform and in many cases I do well. But throughout this year, I have begun to recognize the cracks in my foundation. I have been taking time to reflect since then. Seeing my own reflection, seeing how I’ve messed up. But also reflecting on the success, and especially reflecting on how I should learn to love myself. I also have to recognize that who I am reflects on others. Hiding from my reflection helps keep me from seeing what’s wrong, but also means no one else gets a chance to know how I feel.

A mirror simply reflects the light that hits it. It’s all very simple to see, but it gives us a different perspective. I can’t see my own face without a reflection, and maybe I haven’t spent enough time looking at myself in the mirror. A fixer can fix many things without being fixed, but this cannot go on forever. I’m starting to see that now. A mirror can be used to find our flaws and things to fix. It shows things that we cannot change and have to live with. We can see behind ourselves with a mirror. I can get up close and find details on my face easily. It helps me get my poofy hair in order when I need to. It also shows me…well, me. I’m recognizing that I often see myself as a work-in-progress in the mirror. Someone still in need of fixing, not someone I love. I don’t think of loving myself because of all those things I feel I need to accomplish. In fact, it took me years to even consider accepting myself as “okay”, much less deserving of love.

What this past year has taught me is that I don’t spend enough time reflecting. I see problems in the mirror to fix, not someone who is trying and actually got a lot of things done despite not being perfect. My time looking in the mirror has been used to judge what I see. Just look back at these yearly essays! I kept my eyes forward, looking at what to do and what to do in the year to come. I’d look back at the year with a critical lens, looking for a word to use as my focus in the year to come. Admirable thoughts that truly helped me in the days where I didn’t know if life was even worth it. Maybe now I don’t see a project in the mirror. I see someone who made it. The visage of someone who kept going in spite of fear, self-loathing, and regret.

In 2026, I choose to reflect on who I am and let that reflection be what it is.

-Chris P.

Societal labels have long been a difficult thing for me. The sorts of stereotypes I learned in grade school were meant to both divide and attract. And while I didn’t jive much with sports people, it doesn’t mean I couldn’t have a conversation with them. I can’t give you a specific instance from memory, but the point remains the same. As I grew up and established my principles, I never found labels useful. People are far more nuanced than just one word could ever encompass. Later in life, labels did get more complex and people tended to have multiple labels attached to them, which is certainly closer to the way I think. Yet still not close enough.

I eschewed labels in my mid 20’s. I started removing anything that would make me part of a large group. I intentionally left things like religion and relationship status blank on Facebook, for example. To me, the amount of baggage that comes with a label means people might see me in a certain light that I can’t control. And control is an important point here. I control my image and who I talk to quite purposefully. When it comes to meeting people, I wanted to be as much of a blank slate as possible and let people get to know me naturally. I felt this lead to a more honest impression of me and invited more nuance. I don’t mean to act like I am especially complicated, but I certainly felt more served by the ability to directly interact with people than to let them read a brief 20-words-or-less description of me.

While this manner of controlling my image has certainly worked in many ways, there were times it backfired. Being vague isn’t always attractive and often leads to assumptions. One that I learned would keep following me is people thinking I’m homosexual, though the label was always “gay.” It wasn’t until my 20’s that I actually started to consider how this kept happening. As a teen, it did come up a few times until I actually had a couple of girlfriends in high school and then the label generally disappeared. But after high school and moving, I found a couple of my friends had assumed my sexuality was of the homo variety. How did this keep happening?

What Am I?

Put simply, I just don’t give off any particular sexual vibe. And in a culture where homosexuality is a controversial topic, a man who is comfortable talking to other men while being single and never giving the impression he’s pursuing women is pretty frequently seen as being into men. I didn’t know how to stop that label from following me since I wasn’t about to change my whole persona just to avoid it. I had great friends of any gender and being attracted to women didn’t mean I needed to talk about them (bro culture style) or approach them with designs of courtship. Which isn’t to say I didn’t approach any women, but this was not frequent or visible enough to be noticed in general. All I really knew is that I preferred women.

In my later 20’s, people were generally more mature and I didn’t have many people assuming what I was into. In fact, that was sort of my favorite time. I made friends easily and we just enjoyed company without the pretense of sexual intimacy. It was around that time (2017 or so) that I heard the term asexual and didn’t really think about it besides learning what it meant. Plenty of other things on my mind and I just knew that I had simply chosen to be a celibate straight person, right?

In 2020 and beyond, what with the pandemic, I spent a lot more time online and learning about my principles and where I stand. Considering where my political leanings began to lie, I paid more attention to things like sexual and gender identities. Particularly after my roommate came out as transgender. You may have conflicted or negative opinions about these sorts of things, but I’m not here to argue about them. I only need to describe how I got to where I am. Not long after my roommate came out, I was reintroduced to the idea of asexuality and I took some time to actually learn about it. Little did I realize what I would discover.

What is Ace?

Asexuality is a lack of sexual attraction to anyone in particular. It is an umbrella term that encompasses a number of identities that all can generally be described as being less sexual than most people. So you know, the opposite of an asexual person (Ace) is called an allosexual (Allo), meaning someone who naturally experiences sexual attraction, though there is a spectrum between those two terms. Be mindful, this is very generalized and there are better explanations out there.

From 2021 to 2023, I casually learned more and more about asexuality. I found myself liking the idea of asexuality as a concept and thought it was an interesting way to live, as though it was a choice like celibacy is. Asexuality is most certainly not a choice, but labeling oneself as asexual is a choice. This is an important distinction, one which I still had not made as I learned about sexuality in general.

At some point in 2024, I watched a video of a man describing what asexuality is like for him, which lead to quite a few other videos. I found and filled out a “bingo card” for asexual experiences early this year, which is included below. The things I heard on those videos and the things I saw on that bingo card all clicked together in my head (which is one of the spots on the card. Bingo!). I have been feeling and experiencing those things for years and had not the words to describe them until the spotlight fell on asexuality.

What do I mean by this? I mentioned earlier that I believed I was straight, and that isn’t untrue. That is not a complete label, though. I am inclined towards females, but I don’t experience that attraction as sexual; it’s far more aesthetic in nature and is something I can ignore on command. What I wasn’t understanding as a teen and young adult is that people can see someone who is attractive and have sexual thoughts about them. That would drive people to couple up and hook up and all sorts of other things. I do not have that mental connection between beautiful people and sexual desire. For years I thought I was just more respectful in some way. Thinking I was better because I didn’t see people as an object to desire and wanted to emotionally connect more than anything else.

If that just sounds like celibacy, I can understand the confusion because that’s how I was raised and it confused me for most of my life. Let me put this in different terms. Being celibate does not mean that sexual desire is somehow absent. However, that carnal desire is much less prevalent in me. People choosing to cheat or teenagers hooking up never made sense to me. How would it be so easy to do those things when you have a choice? I didn’t know that I actually did have a choice where most people have a drive that is harder to ignore. It has been illuminating and even a bit shameful to realize how much judgement I’ve passed on people who aren’t broken at all. If that still doesn’t make sense, I have a metaphor I developed.

Passion or Passive for Coffee

If you love having coffee in the morning, you know that feeling where all you want is coffee. It’s intense for some people, some people just like it for the sake of the habit, and others think it’s disgusting. That’s essentially the difference. Some people wake up and will put focus on getting coffee either as soon as they can or when it’s convenient. Me, I find it easy to say no to coffee in the morning, despite the fact it is provided at my workplace. Allosexuals have that drive for sex like people in a Starbucks drive thru have a drive for coffee (or whichever poison they desire). Asexuals such as myself either don’t feel that drive or the methods by which that drive is triggered are more complicated. In fact, I’ve had more coffee lately because one of my coworkers and I have been bonding over good coffee. That would be considered demisexual according to my metaphor! The metaphor can be distilled down to a few certain tropes as well, organized as “Coffee Interest/Sexual Persuasion”:

• Vital/Allosexual – “I need coffee to function in the morning.”
• Occasional Lover/Demisexual – “I only like coffee if it’s exceptional.”
• Indifferent/Asexual – “I enjoy coffee, but I don’t really need it.”
• Dislike/Sex-averse – “I hate coffee.”

I can only explain this so well and I have some recommended material to help understanding spread throughout and in a references section at the end of the essay. The AVEN website is a great primer for the topic. But the metaphors about the ace-to-allo spectrum that use food and drink are honestly a good way to describe the basics.

So, who am I now?

I have been single for the majority of my life. I think I’ve been in a dedicated relationship for a total of maybe three years of my life. Three years out of more than thirty!! I felt broken or unattractive sometimes because of that. And hey, maybe my vibe is unattractive, since people don’t often approach me. But at least I can say now that it doesn’t bother me as much as it used to. While my sexual desire is basically nil, that does not mean romantic desire does not exist. Emotionally, I enjoy connecting with people and I truly do not care who that is. I recently had an intense conversation with a stranger who wanted to know all about me, which was both strange and wonderful. Haven’t seen them since, but the feelings—while not romantic—are powerful.

I have, in fact, many strong emotional connections with a ton of men in my life. I can understand why I was mislabeled as gay, really. In fact—as I’ve been learning—it’s actually pretty typical for asexual (and other) people to have an additional label like homo-romantic, hetero-romantic, or pan-romantic to describe the sorts of people they feel romantic attraction to. For me, that would land as pan-romantic in some ways, but I’ll admit I’m still sorting out where I stand there. So, why asexual? Why not stay an “obligate celibate”? Why adopt labels now when I hated them so much before? As a partial answer to that last question, I do still dislike labels, but for much more complicated reasons now. Story for a different time. As for the other questions, I’ve realized the value of certain labels.

I want to be known only as me. I am an individual with quirks as well as tropes. No set of labels could fully capture my personality, especially when you consider that every relationship is different and I wouldn’t act the same around everyone I know. That doesn’t make me special, I believe everyone can be described in the ways I describe myself. However, that is exactly why labels are useful tools. You will never know someone fully if you learn what they got once on a Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) test, but you can take that information into a conversation and learn their nuances if they’re willing to tell. The point of a label is a hook to know more about someone, if that label has some sort of importance to you. I know I’m probably preaching to the choir here, but this was important for me to learn as I learned about my sexuality. It’s why I am publicly showing the colors of the asexual flag. I want to wear my colors and be less vague since I know myself better.

The most important part of this knowledge has been separating my romantic desires from my lack of sexual desires. A book simply titled Ace introduced the idea to me in greater detail than I had previously imagined. That book is actually the catalyst for this essay. I have written this essay about three times already with extremely different takes before I finished the book. Now that I’ve let the words sink in, I realize why I wanted to write this essay. In the simplest terms I can muster, I must be me. If I am asexual, I should present that. If I am emotionally invested in someone, I should present that as well. I actually looked into local speed dating recently because, while shallow, it is a way to get out of my own head and break my own ice.

I could describe more about my experiences, but I don’t think I will. In some ways, this essay is the conclusion to the word of the year essay I never wrote about my life in 2019 (named Subsist in the 2020 essay). And as I think about it, I never will write that essay. What happened that year is far less important than how it got me to where I am now. Learning about my asexuality was the end goal that I hadn’t discovered yet.

I hope you understand I don’t intend to preach at those who are frustrated by identities and genders outside of their comfort zone. Everyone is free to disagree with me. But I want to encourage discussion and learning about subjects we don’t understand. I wouldn’t feel good about myself if I didn’t learn what I identify as. I spent a long time questioning myself, wondering if I was just some fluke or broken in some way. I blamed myself, my upbringing, my relationships, just about anything that could possibly explain why I wasn’t like most of the people I knew. What a relief to know that I am not broken! What a joy to realize I can be happy with who I am! I wouldn’t trade these feelings for anything.

Being asexual is one of my core truths that took two and a half decades to discover. What truths do you have yet to discover?

Chris P.

References:

Ace by Angela Chen – https://www.angelachen.org/ace

Asexual Experiences Bingo card (unknown creator, but I’d love to attribute it to someone)

Asexuals and Sex – David J. Bradley https://youtu.be/MUUDzDRLRDI?si=kTYA-qtlMnyY77GN plus other videos he’s made.

Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN) – https://www.asexuality.org/ for some quick and easy reading on types of aces.

We should begin by properly defining the terms. I could quote the dictionary, but I’ll go off the cuff here to explain my meaning from the heart.

The northern border is called gregarious, which is a fancy way to describe outgoing people. Groups and social interaction are preferred! Even when the people aren’t talking, just the presence of people around is comforting for outgoing and gregarious people. The polar opposite south border is isolated. You can guess what I mean here: introverts, asocial people, etc. Those who find solace in being alone or in small, trusted circles. Between them lies the areas where most people land.

And for our lateral axis, we start at the west with vibing. In the simplest terms, I would describe this best as purely emotional. Letting experiences simply happen and feeling your way through it. “Vibes” is very much a popular term these days, but it was prevalent in the past as well. It doesn’t mean one isn’t thinking, but the primary driver of conversation and thought is emotion. Lastly, our eastern edge. I went with thinking as the label, but philosophizing was also in the running. However, philosophy is never without emotion, so it didn’t fit. Generally speaking, thinking means analysis, logic, and reasoning. Music isn’t often a scholarly pursuit, yet we have reviews and intense analysis of musical structure and lyrics. The best music also encourages thinking! There between vibing and thinking is the spectrum between emotions and logic. Neither better than the other, but serving their purpose as needed. Armed now with knowledge, let us consider what this represents. As with other charts and graphs using spectrums, the point is to make our understanding of a concept less binary. Nuance and vagueness made visual, giving us a way to generalize and make conclusions using data.

Spurred by a conversation with my good friend Hannah, I had to contemplate the differences with how people experience music. The spectrum isn’t perfect, but I think it covers a lot of the bases. The chart is solely focused on generalizing how one tends to experience music. One of the obvious challenges with the chart is the fact that songs, artists, and albums really need their own separate and more complicated chart. This chart cannot accurately gauge what kind of music a person likes, only how they choose to experience it. There may be some common threads, but people are nuanced. It’s also important to note that defining gregarious versus isolated can get complex depending on a person’s preferences. An isolated person can enjoy party music by themselves just as a gregarious person may love a music festival!

We’ll start with describing where I am on this chart. When I say my music library is a strange mix, I mean it. I have music fully in the “vibe” category (instrumental, soundtracks, etc.) and also music with some heavy moralizing (most of Field Music’s discography). But I’d say as a listener, I tend slightly toward vibing and strongly land around isolated. Despite having been to a number of large and small concerts, as well as being in a jazz combo and symphonic band, I really don’t love venues for music. That’s not to say I don’t go out to experience music, but it’s very much an occasional choice compared to people I know that live the concert-going life. In general, I prefer to experience music solo. This extends to when I turn on music with others. I often leave the music volume down low so as to avoid conversations about the music unless I really want to talk about it.

As for vibes and thinking, my lean towards vibes is that sometimes my emotional response to music can’t be put into words. I can think of many times where my description of a moment in a song is just human sound effects. That’s not to say I don’t think about music and lyrics, but I only deeply analyze certain songs and lyrics. And the more poetic the lyrics are, the more likely I am to misinterpret the meaning. I’ll admit, I prefer a song’s meaning to be on it’s face rather than found in subtext.

For our second example, my friend Hannah is an excellent choice. She’s not opposite, but she trends more towards center with a decisive lean towards thinking and slightly gregarious. Hannah loves to share the music she’s into and discuss the lyrics at length, but concerts can be very hit or miss for her. She would go to a concert to see a group she likes, but she prefers to avoid dealing with crowds. Sharing music with friends is much more joyous for her. I should note, this is purely my estimation of her, she didn’t have input on my placement of her. We spent hours talking about music and lyrics back in the day, but also singing around each other (when I had the chutzpah to do so). The number of times we have talked about Lord Huron at length is immeasurable! And while we weren’t always deep diving into the songs, we did discuss them and what they mean in general and what we take from them. The conversation would usually shift to related subjects, rather than an exhaustive analysis. Often, this would lead to topics I knew nothing about and I’d be listening to Hannah’s thoughts. To her, a song is full of meaning to be explored and related to.

Conversely, if someone asks me to listen to a song I didn’t choose, I often have to force myself to analyze and even enjoy the music (my tastes in music are also just more picky). Getting me into a music analysis mood takes a bit more effort. A notable example is the first time I heard “Eyes Without A Face” by Billy Idol. I had never expected a ballad from Billy Idol—particularly on the Rebel Yell album—but the lyrics also begged for some consideration. How does one have eyes without a face? Why does Billy Idol’s character in the song find that so egregious? I’m sure someone has a much better take than me, but I wanted to explore purely from my own understanding at the time. Another great example is my recent analysis and description of my experience with the song “Can’t Take It With You” by Alan Parsons Project (read it here!). Hannah, by comparison, will send me a song and ask for my opinions and analysis. Much to her chagrin, I can’t come up with anything notable in short notice.

I can clearly dig deep into a song and how I feel about it, but it really takes a spark of some sort on my side. Meanwhile, you can give Hannah just about any song and get her analysis within minutes. It’s a talent I’d love to constantly use, but my “vibes” just don’t hit that level all the time.

One more example! My sister, an avid singer, is similar to Hannah in that she leans gregarious. She sings in groups all the time, including learning new and difficult music. Just ask her how much work it has been coming from a traditional choral harmony structure to that of barbershop quartet harmony (specifically the dis-harmony!). But that interest in musical structure and performance leans more towards vibes, even if it requires a ton of thinking. Performance and execution is most commonly a vibing activity, but not exclusively. The learning part of music is more thinking, but only while learning or writing music in detail. There are likely other situations of thinking while performing, such as rap battles! My sister also tends to play music for others to hear and is happy (often hoping) for people to talk about the music. But to make my point clear, the act of creating and performing music is very much a mix of practical skills and emotional experiences. This would put her as somewhat gregarious and almost centered between vibing and thinking.

“Well, this is interesting and all, but why are we talking about this?” If you’ve been asking yourself that question, well I’m glad you’re here! We’ll get to other questions soon.

Consumption of music, historically, is primarily vibes. Music is an emotional expression first and foremost. However, that does not mean all music should be taken without analysis. Certainly, music reviews cover quite a few bases all over the spectrum I’ve laid out. Writing about music is not strictly thinking, but it does require thought. And it’s impossible to properly analyze a song pragmatically, at least in my opinion. Throughout my life I’ve found my music habits just don’t jive with other people. And I think a lot of that also comes from the fact that people who consume music like I do are likely to also be pretty isolated. I don’t think of it as a problem, of course. I once bought all the music by some dungeoncore (yes, a real genre/theme) performers simply because the vibe was pretty good and I was just in the mood to hear some people perform! Plus I crave atypical sounds in my music. I’m just a vibes guy and always have been.

I celebrate the people with a thinking style of musical consumption. I often avoid pop music and miss out on some real hits. I remember the first time someone pointed out the song MMMBop to me. I knew of it but had never really listened to it. Sure, it sounded cool, but it was just pop, right? Vapid and marketable? Not at all! MMMBop is one of the most mature pop/rock songs I’ve ever heard. It took another friend telling me to really listen and read the lyrics. It’s not just a (mmm)bop, it asks some hard questions about relationships and growing old. That’s a song that makes me think, much like my experience with “Can’t Take It With You.” I do pay attention to lyrics, but less so. Particularly in more wordy songs, such as “A New Town” by Field Music, it satisfies my appreciation of songs that put all the meaning in plain language, but also leaving enough to the imagination for interpretation.

An example of people in other areas of the musical consumption spectrum would be people who love to just go to shows and hear all the music. They are often there for one or two of the performers, but like to experience the whole show. That would absolutely land them in the gregarious side and likely lean towards vibing. People who mostly listen to the radio (or generated streaming playlists) can land all over the spectrum, but I’d say it’s similar to a music show with more isolation. Then we have those who maybe don’t listen to music as often and don’t like it to distract them when they do listen (e.g.: lo-fi genres), which I’d argue makes them isolated and vibing. And thinkers? Well, we have music reviewers, at least when they are listening to analyze, but that’s far too situational. I would posit that thinkers are less common in general, but people who have a job related to music are more likely to think more deeply about music. A composer, for example, would be analyzing song structure both in music they make as well as what they consume. At the same time, music is emotional expression and a composer would absolutely fill their creations with their emotions and experiences. They could be either gregarious or isolated depending on other factors. Most of the fun in this spectrum is not simply guessing where a type of person would land, but finding out where you and your friends stand on the board. A good conversation topic!

The varied experiences we’ve had with music and how they shape our manners of consumption are fascinating. So much of my consumption is based on my youth and how some music stuck with me. The Forest Temple theme in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is an early example. The song uses a vocal sample with effects that give an exceptionally creepy feeling on the back of my neck. That theme stuck out to me because I was baffled by the choice the composer (Koji Kondo) made to include that sound clip. What did it add to the song? Why does it make me feel so weird? It’s just great songwriting, in the end.

That’s why I’m a vibes listener. How it made me feel consumed me. Thinkers likely read lyrics as they listened and applied those lyrics to their life experiences. It made songs more relatable, whether the song is actually applicable to one’s life or not. I listen to Dire Straits’ “Walk of Life” and I think of the buskers I’ve heard and seen throughout my life, but my enjoyment of the song is primarily the sounds coalescing in my brain and causing joy. There’s a vibes element to the song, but there’s also this thoughtful element: thinking about people playing music just to make a few bucks and eat that day. It’s not strictly vibing or thought-provoking, but it has a lot of vibes and thoughts to provoke. Good reasons why it’s a certified classic in my book. By comparison, I hear an Adele song and I can’t even begin to relate. My life will never resemble hers, so I struggle to hear the song and enjoy it. Nonetheless, I can’t deny that I have enjoyed the sounds of some Adele music (Rolling In The Deep really does have a catchy feel).

My life also doesn’t resemble Sade’s “Paradise”, since the lyrics clearly talk about loving someone for life and the music video shows both familial and romantic love. However, “Paradise” has an infectious groove and killer bass line. It’s not a matter of what music is better, I certainly don’t think Adele is a bad artist. But I’m caught by a groove before the lyrics get my attention. It’s why I have so much instrumental music in my library.

Music means a lot of things to a lot of people. Art is that way by nature. Our interpretations on a thing are just as important as the intent of the message, whether vocalized or not. There is beauty in explaining a thing as well as leaving it inexplicable. It’s also fair to say that vapidity exists in music as well. Manufactured and highly marketable bands and songs exist. I have even brought up the irony of a group like Muse having huge and complex shows while criticizing rich and powerful people. Not that I dislike Muse or consider them specifically at fault, that’s a topic for another day. But it is easy to find music written solely for profit, though not everyone would agree on what qualifies as for profit versus for art. And a listener’s appreciation of a for-profit song is still valid to them. I like to think that most people are earnest and avoid the most obvious pandering. The fact that I hear about new and unique artists gaining popularity just through social media “word of mouth” is a sign that people enjoy good music more than vapid music.

I hope you readers come away from this little essay thinking about where you land on the music consumption spectrum. Even if I’m not a thinker when it comes to music, I appreciate dipping my toes into deep musical thoughts. I tend to do that in my writing more than music, but it does happen. Though I’m not forcing you to expand your horizons, I do encourage understanding how you got to where you are. And if you already have, great! Or if you disagree with my assessments, that’s fair and I’d enjoy the feedback. I am a late bloomer in many respects and quantifying my musical habits and tastes is hardly necessary to have a good life. I put so much stock in overthinking and self-reflection because it’s given me a continually better sense of self. I’m a solo vibes guy. I’ll sit in the back and enjoy what I hear. If you ask me why, I may or may not have a great explanation! But I’ll still smile and enjoy myself. I just hope you can too.

Chris P.

My first big move was to Connecticut back in the early 2010s. Life had become pain in Texas, simple as that. Then, after two years in Connecticut, the pain had found me again. Chased me back to Texas, what felt like the safest place to go. But that didn’t last long and I felt the draw to escape again, this time to Olympia, Washington. And yet, that also only lasted months, dragging me back to Texas. Finally, the moving was over, at least for a while. The cycle changed to jobs! I worked at one automotive shop for a couple years, saw the writing on the wall and moved on. Another couple years at another, and then we get to Tesla and another move. Finally, we’re here. I’ve been in Austin and Tesla for two more years and the winds blew again. If that paragraph was too long, here’s the quick rundown:
March 2014 – Left for CT
June 2016 – Returned to Liberty Hill, Texas
May 2017 – Left for WA
February 2018 – Returned to Texas, San Antonio this time
December 2020 – Changed jobs in SA
March 2023 – Moved to Austin, started at Tesla.

As you can see, I’ve never really set roots. I know a lot of places and met a lot of people, but I’ve never really stopped. And now that I’m changing again at my own behest, I wonder what drives all of this.

If you’ve been reading my blog for any amount of time, you have probably noticed my drive for change and improvement. The yearly essays are the best example of this, prescribing a word to strive for at the beginning of the year and seeing how it all plays out. Sometimes the words are prophetic, other times they are off-base. But one thing has never changed: that drive to better myself and push for better things. It won’t be easy to explain how I got this way, but the simple answer lies with the reason I even started writing these essays.

I failed college. Badly. It’s been an embarrassment of mine for years. When I got my job at HEB (another two year job!), I felt like it was just a way to stave off the depression. In that time, I met people I still call my friends to this day, and lost friends I still care about. I didn’t think about my future, was terrified of my past. But that one New Year’s Day in 2013, I felt something different and I didn’t know what it meant. All I knew is I had a feeling to chase. That feeling persisted for basically the entire decade and the years of fog gave way to thoughts about the future and acceptance of failure. I got better, I didn’t doubt myself as much as I used to, and I felt gradually more and more happy. That college dropout routine was over. Not that I was out of the woods yet.

Striving for betterment is a journey. Change is inherent to being better. And I don’t mean to opine on myself as being amazing, I don’t have that kind of ego. The point of being better is purely for my own benefit as a way to even live with myself. Coming from my depressive 20s, it was the only logical choice.

So, what’s the two year cycle? What am I running from or chasing? As you might expect, it depended on the situation. But I realized at some point after a conversation with my father that I was both running away from myself and towards myself. He had told me that one must always learn to live with oneself, because that’s the one person you can never escape. Paraphrased, but that was the gist. In my situation, I ran from what I felt were my mistakes at each place throughout the 2010s. But things changed in the 2020s, partly due to more wise words from my friend Melinda. I extrapolated heavily from the original: “Women don’t know what they want until they’re 30.” I took the words to heart, but I realized that they didn’t just apply to women.

As I turned 30, I realized I needed to change. I got out of the relationship I was in during the early part of 2020. I didn’t write my 2020 word of the year blog because I had no idea what I was doing by the end of the year, but I knew that change needed to happen and I was learning what I wanted. And I knew that running from mistakes didn’t solve anything, but that running was still good. So I ran. I stayed single, changed jobs, changed a lot of my perspectives, realized where I stood in an increasingly political world. I ran from who I was, not what I did.

I don’t want to come off as dark here. I wasn’t a terrible person. Misguided, confused, sure. But mostly scared. At 30 years old, I started learning how to face fear, rather than ignore it. I vowed I would find more passions and dive more fully into my career. And, well, that’s how Tesla happened.

Throughout 2022, a lot of things changed. Friends I had simply left or faded away. It had all the trappings of what happened back in 2013, as I felt the threads of my friends unraveling. A friend group, vital to me, was falling apart. Both in 2013 and 2022. I was afraid that I couldn’t juggle my emotions as well as scheduling time to see people. In 2014, I ran from it. In 2022, I looked that sadness in the face and had to talk to it. I felt all the emotions that came with loss. I even said things I regret and lost friends because of it. And while it hurts to this day, I feel better knowing that I didn’t run. Somehow, there was an undercurrent of encouragement in that. I’m not saying that losing the friendships is what drove me to Tesla, but I do think that it’s indicative of improving self-esteem. That same self-esteem was growing at work.

At Tesla, I took my licks for 6 months in position I didn’t love. I learned to wake up at 4:30 am. I learned to deal with the struggles of parking at a massive facility and dealing with all sorts of people. I still made some lifelong friends in that position, but my career needed to go elsewhere. And elsewhere I went, to the Cybertruck project. There, I had to learn everything from scratch. And after another 6 months, I was leveled up and made a lead in the department. After some more struggling with changes, the team came together and we became the record holders out of four shifts of technicians. So, why now? Why leave now?

The honeymoon is over. My last review was good, I got an acceptable rating! But my supervisor’s words all said I was exceptional. Why didn’t I feel it? Why did I get excuses when I am clearly more deserving? Again, this is not ego, this is blood and sweat and months of my life devoted to a project that is increasingly more ignored. I know this isn’t enough. I apply for other positions at Tesla and I don’t even get a call. This is absolutely not enough. I see an encroaching pit of quicksand in my future.

No way I’m getting stuck here. Not a chance I let myself despair. I work at my resume and send it out on a Hail Mary pass. Seattle. Ever since I left, I’ve been dreaming of that area. I visit almost every year for a brony convention. I could stay in Austin, sure, but why should I wait any longer? I have moved before. I have felt these risks many times in the past. I look at my odds and they all seem good. It’s time to go.

Here we are. I’m going back to Washington. I got a job offer that includes a level up and a decent raise. I’m told about upward mobility at the new job. I don’t really believe that because I know people use honeypots to attract workers. The money and their desire to get me in the door is all I need. Maybe it’ll be another two year cycle at this place (hopefully it’s much more than two years), yet at least I’ll be in Washington. Washington has been my goal, but it was not tangible until now. I thought I’d at least retire there, if I could even still move at that point in my life. Many of the skills I learned at Tesla are those of adaptability and a willingness to take risks. The hard skills of electric vehicles are still important of course, but I would have learned those at some point.

I’m not angry that Tesla ended up being a dead end. I woke up while working there. I stopped being afraid. At least…less afraid. Being cognizant of the risks and dangers is how I learn to take a risk anyway. I had to learn who my enemy was. For the longest time, I was my own worst enemy. Doubt and trepidation are still parts of my psyche, but I didn’t get where I was by lying down or letting go of the wheel. I’m white knuckling that wheel and wondering if I know what I’m doing, but still going forward because I know that it’s just the fear talking.

I’ve walked this path before and overcome those dangers. Bring it on.

-Chris P.

So here I am again, writing about the year gone by and trying to encompass my plans for next year into a single word. Good thing there are plenty of words to choose from.

I left off last year mentioning that I had applied for a lead repair technician position in the Cybertruck end of line department. I was told I’m the shoo-in for the position along with an experienced technician on my shift. I had to wait until I got to my 1 year anniversary at Tesla to officially get the title, which was longer than I wanted to wait, but ultimately not a problem. I was already working the position before getting the title and raise, so my reasoning was more selfish. I felt that having the title would make people pay more attention to my communications, which was ultimately true after I got the title. Still, the couple of months before getting the title were spent learning how to lead in that group. Early in the year, we were gradually ramping up production and my team was the weaker performing team overall. Multiple new hires were being added either externally or on-the-job transfers from other departments. In fact, early on in my lead position, I was given the task of interviewing people wanting to work in repair.

A large part of that early development was teaching the team as well as learning about them. Lots and lots of intelligent folks join up, but also lots of people who need more help. That’s all part of building a team, so it’s par for the course. I am grateful that interpersonal conflicts are kept to a minimum, in comparison to the chaos of the body fit team I came from, but there are still people to appease or coach. And things got pretty hairy there for a while. The other lead and myself often had to keep the department running by ourselves after our supervisor quit. We did recruit a couple of our technicians to help us out. But change was right around the corner.

In March, the team was split. The majority of techs came with me and the associate manager to a new building while the other lead and a smaller team stayed in the factory. At this point, the job became how to get the new building running properly. We didn’t run the place alone, multiple other departments have to work with us to keep the process moving. And now I also have to learn to work with a whole new management team. I think you get the picture, I have a lot to learn and still a lot of expectations.

Fast forward a couple of months, the management team has completely changed. Not long after we moved, Tesla had a large layoff. Cut into every part of the company, including my own team. At the time, my team is also still seen as the weakest, which is pretty fair because we’re not making the numbers of the other teams. I don’t take it personally, it’s just hard to get everyone motivated and the management has only just started to drum up excitement. In a couple of weeks, we started to get it together. Management saw our weak points and we leads stepped in to course correct. In short order, we broke our Monday record and started making consistently higher numbers on other days as well.

Skipping ahead a few months, my team is now the record holder for all shifts in the Cybertruck department, moving the most units in a day.  And this is no fluke, this is a concerted effort by all team members to improve. And we did an excellent job at keeping our quality at a high level. Truly, it’s been a massive change from the early days.

But on the other hand, at least for my personal growth, there’s a bit of a hiccup. One of the managers, upon seeing me, decided I was to be assigned outside running logistics. Unfortunately, he and I have a bit of a history. To make a long story short, he assumed I was probably the weakest lead on the team. And it’s probably nothing personal, he first met me when I was having a minor medical incident at work back in my early days. He didn’t see my progress and didn’t take the time to learn about me. I still have a lot of resentment about this because I was passed over for a lot of interesting things during the summer. I spoke to my supervisor about this later, after that manager had left. He hadn’t realized what this did to my career and we worked to change it up. So I feel a bit better about it all at this point. But besides that, my performance review score has stagnated. Earlier in the year, I achieved above average and some important level ups for my career. Now, according to my bosses, I can’t be offered any better than acceptable, despite those bosses acknowledging how I’ve stepped up.

Again, I don’t want to see it as personal. I work closely with my bosses and I appreciate them. Fingers are pointed and excuses are made, all of which is above my head. I will give my opinion where it matters. To that end, it feels more and more that my growth will continue to be stunted where I am. Can’t share any more details in that regard, just that I’m feeling the push to change things up.

Well, enough about work. It consumes a lot of time, but I do exist outside of a factory. It’s unfortunate then that I can’t say much that’s terribly exciting. I’ve been giving more serious efforts in therapy because I need that springboard for how I feel and the kind-yet-firm responses. I have learned to despise the place I live because it’s really showing signs of falling apart. In fact, the fridge went out in September, got replaced with a newer inferior model, and has now gone out again in January. The pull to buy a house is real, but I’ve been working my finances up from basically zero.  Still, this year feels right.

In other news, I did get a cat! 

And five extra surprises within a month of getting her. 

Turns out she was pregnant and a 2 AM yowling cat got my attention really quick. But it’s been a long time since I got to handle and foster kittens, so I jump right into action and get a place for them to live and make momma cat happy. She’s only just getting to know me at this point, so her trust in me is tenuous. Still, I put a lot of work into her comfort and happiness, which hasn’t really paid off in a cuddly cat. Can’t blame her too much, having been a dumped stray saved off the streets of San Antonio. I name her Jeri after thinking about it for a while, firstly named after a character in the novel I was writing as a teen.

I have also been trying to foster relationships outside of work. Mostly with coworkers, ironically, but the team I work with is something special. Not perfect, but we mesh extremely well.  But now, I’m really starting to feel the pull to something more challenging.  It’s been good where I am, but I knew I wanted more since I first applied to Tesla. I have put my name in the ears of people I’d like to work with, especially with new projects coming up all the time.  Hopefully this year is the year I find the mental challenges I’ve been wanting for years!

There’s not too much else to say, if I’m honest. I haven’t had any huge changes, though I’ve continued to try and better myself. The fact is, I haven’t been making much progress. Some of that is due to my environment and some of it is just me. Still, since I started recognizing the deficiencies, I can address them. One I just recently recognized actually has no form yet, I just know it’s a reason I am so lethargic some days. I have to push myself to do things some days, which isn’t abnormal for most people, but is troublesome in excess. Excess is the problem!

2024 being the year to excel worked out well, I think. There were problems along the way, but overall I believe I achieved what I set out do and excelled!  This year feels very different already. I feel halfway to burnout, which is oddly on par for me. The longest I’ve kept any job is just over two years. Since I’m not fully burned out (like I was for Finsanto and Whole Foods), I know I still have interest in what I do.  Outside of work, I’m battling falling into the wrong routines.  In fact, as you can tell, this essay is exceptionally late. I did start it on time, but I kept putting it off over and over.  I think it is important in these looks back to also see the nuance. I excelled at work, but I have been gradually falling behind at home. I’ve been spending time recognizing where I fall short, especially in comparison to my performance at work. I hate to be so somber, but I am trying to be ruthlessly honest with myself. Of course, that can’t be the only thing I do.

In seeing the good and bad and everything in between, I’m left with the choices of what to fix and what to take with me going forward. I’ve been reading motivational books with my father and siblings for a couple years now, including Deep Work by Cal Newport, Shift Into A Higher Gear by Delatorro L. McNeal and Atomic Habits by James Clear. I haven’t come away with a full life philosophy yet, but that’s because I haven’t evolved enough yet. Which is to say, the advice of these books is sitting with me, but the applications aren’t complete. And evolution implies taking the beneficial traits that helped me live and using them more fruitfully. And it means changes and growth, like I wrote about so long ago. To evolve, I have to find the vestigial traits and cut them out.  

To truly live, I have to be more.

-Chris P.

Pyramid, an album by The Alan Parsons Project, is not highly regarded in comparison to other works by the group. It had to follow up the highly successful I, Robot, not to mention showcase the audio engineering prowess and be a cool concept that stands tall. According to reviewers and the general public, it was none of those things. I don’t happen to be one of those detractors. And that’s not to say I’m the only one, I’m certain there are other fans of the album. But I found myself perplexed by the opinions of Pyramid, especially since I’ve listened to both I, Robot and Pyramid without reading any reviews and I ultimately like Pyramid more! The “why” is an interesting story by itself, but not fully in the scope of this essay. No, today I want to take you on a journey of self-discovery I took as a result of thoughts provoked by one song. The title is the name, and the journey begins now! I recommend listening to the song at least once as we go, provided below.

Context is necessary here. I bought Pyramid on vinyl from a thrift store because I wanted to use my fancy (it’s not fancy, just new and novel for me) record player. And if you think my terminology for LPs and records is wrong, I just don’t care, I’m enjoying a cool thing. Anyway, I knew the artist from my father and the song Pyramania was a memorable song as a child. So I decided it would be cool to get the album and listen to it as it was intended: all in one sitting. I did this a couple of times and I was not super impressed at first, but it did grow on me the more I listened. Came to the point where I really loved the entire album! I’ve actually bought it on CD and the deluxe edition online in high quality FLAC (excessive, I know) just to have it in every format possible and appreciate it every way I can. Will I ever find it on cassette? Is this the Pyramania the song talks about or what? Fun fact, I recently ordered a deluxe box set of the album with a 5.1 mix on a Bluray disc. Yeah, I do have Pyramania…

I do love basically every song on the album, but Can’t Take It With You is the standout for me. I love the opening beat and groove, but it was the words that captured me. The story is from the perspective of a sort of gatekeeper/messenger. They’re speaking to someone about to ride with a boatman across some sort of body of water. If you’re aware of various myths regarding the afterlife, this sounds exactly like a ride across the river Styx. But the theme of the album is pyramids and Egyptology in general, so we’re actually talking about the river Nile and funerary practices in ancient Egypt.

I don’t claim to be an expert, and at the time of the album’s release not many people were experts either. Alan Parsons himself said “The album originally started an an album about witchcraft and the occult and what was known as pyramid power at the time. It was part of that mysterious witchcraft subject. So we just decided that we could base the entire album around the history of the pyramids, the mystery of the pyramids, and this new new-fangled fashion which was to get involved with pyramid power,” (excerpt from this interview about the album). I’m sure it’s not the only album fascinated with pyramids, but the theme is striking nonetheless.

The song is short overall and hammers home the idea that the person about to ride with the boatman has died and is now going to the afterlife, whatever it is. And more than that, the person can’t take anything else with them. We only get a hint of what “things” with the line “And there’s things you’ve got to do.” The whole song is pretty vague on details in general! However, the idea is laid out plainly: dead person, gatekeeper serenading them, and the boatman checking his metaphorical watch waiting for the deceased. So, what about the song has enraptured my attention? Well, it’s the title: the inability to take anything beyond the threshold, the finality of death. The why is no short story, though. We’re taking a dive into the existentialism of my teens and young adult years—the period where I ignored the thoughts entirely—to now, where this song let me explore my thoughts through music.

Suicide and Depression

As a teenager, I had one notable experience with suicide. In my sophomore year, one of my classmates—a regular troublemaker, but fun to talk to—shot himself in the head to end his life. I had no indication and didn’t know him well enough to know where the ideations truly came from. To this day, I know essentially nothing, but the feelings stayed with me. I shared some of how I felt with select people. No one offered a good answer, just comfort. The funeral was a nice experience. I didn’t have much else to say or think about it. And at the time, that was all I felt I needed. Fast forward to university: in band, the co-director was funny and engaging, a huge source of joy and a big reason why I enjoyed the time spent in music. And then one day when we came into the band room, we assembled without instruments and learned he took his own life. I was even further away from this incident, though I heard rumors about the note and other assumptions. I again spoke with a select few people for comfort and thought I’d moved on.

In truth, I haven’t even scratched the surface of the thoughts I had on death. These incidents gave me some self-awareness and thoughts about the afterlife, but I didn’t realize the answers I had been given weren’t going to stick. There were a couple other suicides that occurred in my communities, but these were the memories which affected me most. A slowly growing bag filled with thoughts I chose to ignore.

Existentialism and The Void

Another formative moment, one that I had ignored as I did many emotions as a teen, occurred in my later high school years. On a flight to New York for a church youth group trip, I had an intense existential crisis. I have told no one about this until just now as I write this. I spiraled into the thoughts that there was nothing after death and that there was no promise of life after physical death. My fear was of emptiness, nothingness, the void, anything that means I am dead. As a kid in a loving family who espoused Christian beliefs and values, one would think that my prayers at the time could bring comfort and peace. But there in that plane seat, hands clasped and head rested on them, I was terrified and inconsolable. No one around me could tell and I wasn’t going to talk about it. I did eventually calm down, but only because someone distracted me and I ran out of time to be existential. I am notorious for keeping thoughts to myself at this point in my life. The stress of the plane flight, having thought about the suicide of peers in high school, plus the entire process of self-actualization all lead to this.

I’m not unique in this regard, I know plenty of other people have experienced this before. It was far from the last time I felt this way. After I flunked out of university, I felt closest to suicide. Not close enough to act at all, but mild ideations nonetheless. It manifested in feeling worthless and incapable compared to my entire family, who have all succeeded in many ways. I briefly spoke to my father about this, saying I felt like a failure. He encouraged me and said no one in the family sees me that way. This gave me a little courage, but didn’t change how I felt. As time wore on, I was distracted by life too much to care about my existence. A common thread for most of my life, being distracted or using distraction to avoid thinking deeply about disturbing thoughts.

I had a few other experiences with fear of the void, most notably a dream where I was shot and died, and a recurring dream of fighting a silhouetted figure and losing every time no matter what I did. The dream in which I died even hit me hard enough that I felt my heart stop in the moment. It wasn’t until my later twenties where I felt the fear more often. I can’t point to any specific trigger, but I remember a few moments of questioning what happens after physical expiration and the intense fear that came with it. Again, I told no one. I sorta had no one to tell as this was a time in my life where I was isolated and never stayed in one place too long. I told myself heaven was real and ready for me, yet that wasn’t enough. I’d thought there were better answers that simply felt unattainable.

Immortality and Apathy

Now we’re going back to my teenage years again and thoughts I had regarding immortality. The book series “Castaways of the Flying Dutchman”, a notable but unremarkable series, intrigued me as a teenager. In short, the main character and a dog that accompanies him are granted immortality by an angel who curses the ship The Flying Dutchman after the captain curses God. The boy and the dog—unwitting members of the Flying Dutchman crew—were found to be pure of heart and given the blessing of immortality and wisdom (this was paraphrased from the Wikipedia entry). Like many of the books I read as a teen, I wanted to be that protagonist. When people talked about immortality, most would say they thought it would horrible. I didn’t agree. I felt immortality was an opportunity, but people I told this to likely saw me as apathetic without actually saying the word.

My emotions are not often intense, but do exist; I feel them, but I suppress them. As an adult, I do express myself more, but before my 30s I was often considered emotionless by my peers. I even wrote a few times about a “lion” inside me that was struggling to get out, without really knowing what it was. Few people could bring my emotions out, I struggled to see the beauty in things, and that thought of immortality was still at odds with the opinions of others. I felt that being alive forever would be easy simply because I would feel no pressure to change at the speed of everyone else. I could take as much time as needed to learn, grow, and bring change to the world, rather than just myself. I can guess most of you readers would be appalled at the idea of seeing loved ones die, feeling constantly transient and disappointed by the world, and/or bored! That’s all valid, but my younger self didn’t comprehend this. I could “love” people indefinitely, with or without them. I felt that immortality would be an eternal journey, never devoid of new things as the world changed. Bored sometimes, but knowing that something new could always come along.

In my twenties, well beyond the fantasizing of my youth, that idea of immortality hadn’t gone away. However, after seeing more and more death, the idea was tempered by reality and I had to face impermanence again. The void was closing every day and I had no plan. I was depressed, felt my life would never be good, and it was difficult to ignore the thoughts of nothingness. I wasn’t suicidal as a result of these thoughts, since it would indeed bring the void much closer, but I was undeniably feeling horrible. I had no answers, nothing could stop the thoughts. I could only gradually teach myself to ignore them again through great effort and tell no one about my thoughts. You’ll find that’s a theme here, mostly because I worried my own hopelessness would affect anyone I told and they’d spiral with me or that I’d simply find no suitable answer. It didn’t help that I wasn’t settling down, since I moved three times in three years in my mid twenties. I was not mentally healthy.

Music and Peace

After revealing my mind to you, I’m sure you wonder how we get to a strange rock song on a concept album? I’d listened to the album a couple of times and found myself drawn to Can’t Take It With You. I was in my thirties at this point, working at Tesla, and my emotional awakening had been happening for the past four years. I am still contending with some dregs of depression, but I have grown and faced down many of the fears and pain of my twenties. The void didn’t scare me as much anymore simply because I’d learned to ignore it so well. I’ve had a couple conversations about existence with friends, but never talked in excruciating detail about how intensely I felt the fear in my youth. So, how does this relate to the song?

To put it plainly, Can’t Take It With You was the answer I’d been looking for all these years. I’m sure some of you are planning to tell me about God’s promise, heaven, and forgiveness. Others are probably thinking about another afterlife they subscribe to. That’s all fine, but I’ll say right now: I don’t want to hear it. In the words of our messenger in the song: “But I’ve heard it all before.” In this same vein, another song called Curtains by Eleventyseven addresses the mystery of the Christian God by saying the “man behind the curtain” was never there to begin with. I don’t subscribe fully to that theory, but this song helped to detach the religious concept of death from the strictly physical reality in my head. Trust me when I say I felt the intense fear of nothingness and did lots of thinking, praying, and theorizing about it. I have considered so many alternatives or solutions and it’s all lead to this song. I’m not trying to ignore your input, but this is my writing and my path to peace.

I realized while deep diving in the song that I am the person standing on the shore. I’m imploring the messenger for an alternative, a way to exist beyond the veil of death. I can’t stand the idea of dying and leaving everything behind. The boatman awaits me. The lyrics take a moment in the bridge to reference the previous song: “One More River”. I haven’t explored that song as fully, but it immediately precedes this song for good reason. That song talks about the river to cross, to not look back, and essentially accept that there is only one way forward. Since I’m fascinated with living forever, I would naturally reject the idea that I can only go forward towards the river. Surely I can avoid the river altogether. But the words of Can’t Take It With You are more poignant to me, not befuddled by my previous rejection of reality. My fears of nothingness are those unheard pleadings the messenger is responding to. The messenger has been listening and tells me without any cruelty—even a bit of sympathy to my plight—that I have no choice. Be mindful, my interpretation isn’t the end-all view, just my journey with the themes presented.

So here I am. I’ve listened to the song and realized I’m the dead person in the story. The messenger is kind, but firm. I am dead. Every facet of my physical life is now meaningless and I can’t go back. I have spent years having no way to visualize my thoughts on death. Which isn’t to say I haven’t seen other portrayals of death, but none with a message that spoke so clearly to me: I am dead and I have no recourse. Over many sessions of listening, I find peace with this: death comes for all. Especially in recent years as I realize how many people deeply entwined in my life have died. Although, I have thought about living forever as a robot of some sort. But that doesn’t guarantee my consciousness transfers to digital form. Well, maybe a brain in a robot? Too far-fetched. Technology just isn’t there yet. I can keep clinging, hoping, planning, but I am not permanent.

I will die. I must die. I don’t want to die, but the bell tolls for everyone eventually. What can I do about this? Ostensibly, nothing. Well, in my thirties, I saw a movie you may have heard of called Everything Everywhere All At Once. I even wrote about it! At one point in the movie, existence and time have no meaning for our hero Evelyn and her daughter Joy. Another set of protagonists I wish I could be. In the infinite multiverse, they can be anything, anywhere, at any time. Yet at the end, Evelyn chooses to be with her daughter. Temporary and corporeal, but happy and filled with love. Evelyn chooses this because her husband, Waymond, inspires her to be kind. It’s a simple idea that hit me like a freight train when I first saw the film and inspired me to share it with various people in my life.

Death and Opportunity

In a world that so many people seem to call more callous, more evil, more corrupt than ever before, I simply don’t feel the same. I sometimes don’t have any feelings at all about things…in a sense. I’m not a nihilist, it’s not like I have no opinion or that I don’t care. But I have peered into total darkness before, I’ve thought of myself as the worst human alive. I experienced death in a dream; A simulacra of the real thing, but intense in the moment. What do I mean by all this? I don’t mean that I understand evil or corruption and ascended to some higher plane of philosophy. I’m not unfeeling, but a generalized anger at the world seems like a waste of my energy. I’m still just some dude. A dude that can be kind, more than anything else. It is free, after all.

This whole essay was predicated on one simple rock song. The experiences and changes I’ve gone through in the past twenty years all added up to this song being oddly important. Even Castaways of the Flying Dutchman and Everything Everywhere All At Once were relevant to my growth. I certainly never expected to write this, yet it’s also par for the course. I will admit this post is wildly different from everything that’s come before. By that same token, changing and growing as a person means I write differently, though it’s driven by the same need to share and express myself. And I know people may still think I should be thinking of heaven or some other facet of religion to find peace. Maybe those people are right, but it didn’t help for years. Don’t think of this as wholesale rejection, I’m not angry at God or any sort of being. I can only recognize what was effective in the end.

I won’t live forever, but I can sure try. Being a brain in a robot body (or some equivalent) is fine in my book. The thought of immortality still doesn’t really bother me. If you don’t agree, that’s okay. I’m not saying immortal life—especially tied to some form of technology—would be ideal either. And it’s not like I have fully conquered my fears of death, I still worry when the void comes calling. But I’ve found something fulfilling in this temporary existence. I once thought of myself as worthless trash, a pile of meaningless matter. It’s not surprising that I have to write about my thoughts to come to terms to this. Through years of growth and pain, I have changed how I feel about myself. And by extension, I believe that others shouldn’t feel worthless, whether that’s something people tell them or what they tell themselves. Life as we know it is pretty short, but it’s far from meaningless if you think about it. I want to use every opportunity to be kind and loving.

I am dead. I have come to the river where the messenger/gatekeeper and the boatman are awaiting me. I know why I am here. I may not know how I got there, but I know that I can’t undo what’s happened. Am I okay with this? Yes, after some time to reach acceptance. I am not perfect, I don’t know everything, and I never did everything I wanted to do. But was I kind? Did I bring joy, enrich lives, encourage goodness, and leave a legacy of kindness that will influence others?

Yes. I will.

-Chris P.

Unfortunately, the year didn’t start off on the best foot. Besides moving and getting situated for the job, of course. My uncle Robert, one of the constants of my family, passed away at his job on the first of March, my third day of work. It was fully unexpected, devastating, and life altering. It was difficult enough having a new and frankly terrifying job to learn, but I also felt a giant hole open in my heart. Those days were hard for the whole family, and of course there will be more to come. Loss never goes away while we live. But as is typical of my family, we come together to support each other. The funeral service was a beautiful tribute to a man with a wide breadth of experience, wisdom, and joy. Nothing can replace him, but the amount of love and togetherness my family exuded in the months following his loss were incredible. At the funeral, I even got to share the story of his nickname for me: Christo-Bob. A portmanteau of our names created by him because I was born around his birthday. Clearly, his name was the best choice, right? My parents did decline to name me after him, but he made a special name out of it anyway. In his own way, he made a special relationship with me. He shared similarly unique experiences with everyone he met and it made him truly unforgettable. I could go on and on about him, but he was the real storyteller of our family. I will always miss that.

Throughout March, I was doing my best to keep up at work. And I had a lot of disappointment to deal with. I have spent most of the last decade working as a mechanic in multiple states and workplaces, enough to say I am competent enough to fix most cars confidently. So when I am placed in a position called “body fit” and told that my job is to align body panels all day, I am pretty bothered. But as I got some glimpses into the actual repair processes of Tesla vehicles, I knew I had a lot to learn. So as soon as I could, I got some training on those processes, especially on the high voltage systems. I still think I could have learned all that from the beginning and been a good technician rather than body fitting, but I also think I’m better off now than I would have been otherwise. We’ll get to that part of the story!

I keep learning how to get good at body fit during my early months. It takes a lot of work to learn it and I learn to enjoy the process. Particularly the tedium and how to combat it. You really are aligning the same panels on the same car the entire day, with only small changes throughout the day. In fact, it gets to a point that large changes can really throw off your groove. But while I’m still learning, I am struggling to even find a groove and understand how people can fit a panel in just a few moves. My eyes don’t see what they see, my gauge doesn’t fit the way theirs fits (which is just me not using it correctly). And that becomes a real problem when May rolls around. The first week of May, a week I came to call “The Week of Hell”, was a factory-wide push to test the limits. Everyone was scheduled for 7 straight days of 12 hour shifts and told that speed was the goal. And while everyone suffered, I had a special level of pain. I had just purchased some new shirts to have enough for the week and tried a different deodorant. I don’t know which went wrong, but I developed a heat rash in the first couple of days of work and then I had an ingrown toenail go berserk, all topped off with a full-body soreness that didn’t quit. I really wanted to call out and take time to heal, but I felt a stronger voice tell me to push through. The pain and suffering would be temporary if took care of my body after this week. I wouldn’t be uniquely recognized above my peers for my efforts, but I would be noticed as someone who persevered. Most of all, I felt the need to prove to myself that I had more grit and determination than I thought. Which is why I told very few people about what I suffered in that week. My friends Connor and Anthea, who were putting me up in their house before I found my own place, were probably the only ones who really knew. I survived that week and learned some new limits I had. I turned the week of hell into something thought-provoking and even inspiring. That’s been changing the way I work ever since.

By the way, since I mentioned my friends putting up with me, it’s important to mention how wonderful they are. We’ve been friends since my second semester of ACU and despite my dropping out and many many adventures elsewhere, I have always been welcomed back with open arms for a meal and warm friendship. I have talked before about friends being family, as well as my own family adopting friends as family. Anthea and Connor exemplify that perfectly as people who love so warmly and fully, you are treated as family at the drop of a hat. I wish I could be that warm and kind, but I can certainly try to emulate them. If you ever need friends, find people like them. You will never be sorry.

Back to work, I go through summer finding even more limits. You’ll notice I am going to spend a lot of time talking about work in this essay. I think that’s for a good reason, because it’s the first time I’ve felt like I’m in a career. In a company the size of Tesla, which employs everyone from janitorial staff to engineers and even beyond, the sky isn’t even your limit. I have no idea where I could end up, despite my goals of pushing to engineering. And that’s okay. My goals are one thing, my strengths are another thing entirely. I won’t give up on my goals, but the variety of jobs to do in a factory that size means my strengths will guide me to all sorts of skills that come naturally or I’ve learned in the time I’ve worked at Tesla. So, during summertime, I find that there’s a certain joy in teaching others what I’ve learned as a body fitter, from being cautious with tools and vehicle mutilation to how to even do the job. And I’m trying to teach with only tenuous understandings of the job at the time. Even if I’m not the best, I want to elevate people to even just my level and make the team better. Plus, teaching is among the best ways to really learn something because you have to create a curriculum from your successes and failures alike and explain it to someone without even the slightest idea of what you do. This will matter in a few paragraphs.

In my time as a body fitter, I learn how to work as a team moreso than ever before. The dynamic of the body fit team is pretty chaotic. We’re all a bit crazy because our job is physically demanding as well as tedious. But finding the time to be a team and enjoy work became all the more important as a result. We didn’t have to be friends outside of work, but being friends at work does make the day go by easier, plus it’s easier to ask for help when something is simply beyond your capability. But I’ll admit, my goal was to never ever need help on my work. I wanted to be the absolute best at my job. Not to impress anyone or get an award, simply to feel like I am good at my job. One of the ways I did that was to look at a specific part of the job a bit differently than some of my peers: quality.

As we work through our line of cars, a quality inspector checks our work and sends it off if it passes muster or will bring us back to fix a problem or two (or more). While my coworkers often got upset by the quality inspectors with a good eye for problems, I chose to erase that pride and meet standards. To that end, I would let the strictest quality inspector check my work and even developed a rapport with him. I asked for help from the most skilled body fitters and took what I learned from them to keep meeting high standards. I wanted to finish a panel and be completely done with it the moment I step away, which takes a long time. Quality and speed do not interact nicely with each other; you always give and take from one to the other. And I did slow down considerably in these months of learning, even to the point of frustrating one of my leads multiple times. I never bothered the quality inspector if I felt I didn’t need to debate the quality of my work. It wasn’t about who I respected more, though I admit I did respect one more than the other. I knew what I wanted to achieve and my lead did not dictate my goals.

So, did I achieve that goal? I know some of my readers don’t like this language, but I can passionately say “Hell yes.” Not only did that quality inspector come to trust me almost to the point of not even checking my work, many of my coworkers asked me for help and training on the cars that were hardest. I was officially certified in the body fitting process before I was even putting quality as my top priority, so I simply had a strong foundation to stand on when I did aim for perfection. Another quality inspector I worked with was even astonished that I achieved nearly identical measurements on almost every vehicle. People who’ve been body fitting as long as I have would ask for my advice or a second opinion on their work. Now, that isn’t to say I’m the best, because I am definitely not. But to be good enough to be relied on? Yes. And I feel like that’s relevant for my strengths as a worker and particularly important at Tesla where individual strengths cannot overcome the vast quantity of work that needs to be done every day. The smartest person or fastest fitter can only do so much in one day. However, the reliable worker who needs minimal help and helps others achieve greater things is the one that makes an efficient workflow. That’s what teams are for, at least in my opinion. And that team isn’t just your department, because every department has specific goals and strengths as well. I digress. I don’t need to explain business dynamics to you. Still, this way of thinking is all new to me and I understand it more now than ever.

Flash forward to September. I’ve been doing well at my job. We’ve changed our departmental processes quite a lot in the past couple months and I’ve really felt like I can shine and be a good team member. And yet, the yearning for more that came when I first started at Tesla hasn’t gone away. So, when an opportunity to change jobs came from one of my old supervisors, I jumped at it. You may have heard of a huge stainless steel monstrosity (just my opinion of the visual design) called the Cybertruck. Yeah, I work on that thing now as a repair technician. Not body fitting, actual repair. And what a change that has been. I started working in this position in October and despite the learning I did while I was a body fitter, I am still overwhelmed by everything there is beyond that. Especially given the fact that the Cybertruck is a totally different animal to anything else that has come before it. I don’t want to just share specifics since I do work under an NDA, but I guarantee any tech specs you hear from Tesla or otherwise are different from almost any other production vehicle. And in truth, it is really cool. I’m thankful I had a lot of smart people already in my department when I joined up because their help was invaluable if I was to achieve the same goals I had as a body fitter. Which, those goals haven’t changed.

It takes a village to raise a child and it takes a lot of money and smart people to make a reliable and safe vehicle on modern roads. There are many reasons why cars these days are both better and worse than older cars, but it’s hard to deny that cars now are more reliable and safer. Those advancements happened because smart people had ideas and the money to test, improve, and produce. For every stupid thing one might find about a car in terms of the engineering, there are probably three other things you might take for granted that make the car subtly better. That doesn’t make the stupid engineering okay, but it is important to look at the big picture.

Why do I say this? Well, I work with a lot of teams at my job. Firmware, design, quality, body fit (seeing things from the other side is weird), and more. A big picture view of the entire process is necessary to understand where I fit into the equation and who to turn to when I might be stuck. In turn, I then know who I can rely on if someone else needs assistance on the vehicle they’re working on. Once again, like my work as a body fitter, I became someone who can be relied on for advice. But this time, I’m either directly responsible for the advice I give because I know how to help or I know the person with knowledge and experience most suited to the issue. The electrical certification and class I took from before have absolutely helped me in some difficult diagnostics, and anything else was learned from people with experience I didn’t have. Not much different from how I’ve worked before, simply magnified because of the sheer number of people I can turn to and how different their knowledge is from other people I trust. It really is incredible just how much I can learn from a bevy of different people, and not just when it comes to repair and diagnostics.

In the last two months, I’ve been learning that I am good at facilitating for my peers, not simply a good technician. I am gifted with talents that make me a source for my peers for many things at work. It’s all come to a head on the Monday before Christmas, when the manager of my department came up to me on a day I worked late and asked if I would like to be a lead technician. This isn’t official yet, I have simply put in my application thus far, but it is not what I expected to be doing after only two and a half months of work in this department. That’s why I even talked about strengths earlier. I would like to be an engineer in some way because I think that is a job I can do as I learn more and grow. I have also worked lots of overtime and even days as long as eighteen hours in order to support the department goals, build my skills, and grow as a team member. In the meantime, my current abilities point to a slightly different path. Not one that keeps me from being an engineer, but does mean I take on different roles and grow other skills. Leadership is a skill that’s independent of hard skills and specializations, but it’s not something I would personally consider a soft skill. Anyone can be in charge of something and have the title of leader. In my opinion, it’s something else entirely to be a good leader rather than just someone in charge.

So when I was asked to be a lead, I was caught off-guard and wondered why I would be asked about that. As I thought about it during my Christmas holiday, I realized it actually makes a lot of sense based on what I’ve been doing for years. And maybe some of my readers knew this before I did. Heck, I was in leadership-in-training back when I worked at Whole Foods Market. I didn’t have the maturity to take it as seriously at that time, but maybe that’s because I didn’t love the job enough. Things have changed dramatically for me in the last 7 years and I see my previous jobs as stepping stones to where I go from here. I said that I want to stay in certain jobs for a long time in the past, which was always true. I’m not saying that today, though. Which is not to say I won’t be at Tesla for a long time. Simply put, the breadth of opportunity at Tesla is so vast, I don’t have to think of it as one job. I always wanted to be a jack-of-all-trades and this is exactly the kind of place for my goals. I also know my place, of course. This is just as important as being multi-talented in a place as big as the Texas Gigafactory. As I said before, even the smartest or fastest can’t do as much as a team. Not one person can know and do everything. I’ve been both humbled and impassioned by my career as of late. Humbled to work with people so incredibly smart and impassioned to be as smart and deft as they are. In fact, I’ve put so much work into – well, work – it’s hard to say that I’ve done anything else. I put my career first when I realized just how much I can do with it.

I have talked a lot about goals and strengths in these words. My perspective has been changing rapidly as I have been challenged with new difficulties and learned to overcome them. Where do I plan to go with this? Well, going into 2024, I want to keep an open mind and see where my work takes me. I got back into writing briefly in November 2023 for NaNoWriMo, as some of you have seen. That story, I Know What You Know, is one that’s been close to my heart for a while. I’ve thought about it quite a bit in the last couple of years, though I wrote it when I was much younger. I will have to write about that in more detail as the story progresses, but I can’t do that until I actually write more! I only got eleven thousand words down in the end, though I did write out quite a lot of technical details and a story outline (which continues to change). Having the framework and foundation feels good. I originally wrote the short story with no end in mind but realized where it could go when I revisited it as a bedtime story for a friend of mine. Some of you might remember when I mentioned doing so in another word of the year essay. I hate tooting my own horn, but the responses to my writing have been encouraging as well as a bit…pushy? I don’t mean to say I think the criticisms are wrong, but I realize that I need to let the story tell itself more because I feel it in my way. I do appreciate the criticism though, and I will update the page on this website more as I get further along. At some point, I will stop updating it if I feel like there’s a good reason to make a copyright. Before that, please read and respond!

I can easily say this is one of the best years of my life. Despite all the problems and losses, I have come out this side of the year with a more positive outlook than ever before. I have experienced more good than bad and I can say with certainty that I feel ready for this year to come. And my word choice of captivation was truly accurate. I only mentioned it at the beginning and end for a reason! Look back and tell me there isn’t captivation in every sentence. I really feel like I’m owning my thoughts because I have experience to back it up. I’m not just thinking, I’m sharing my growth. So what could next year hold for me? I’ve now written these things for over a decade, minus one break year. It’s actually difficult to remember every word I’ve chosen and I am afraid to reuse a word. By that same token, most people are very different than the person they were a decade ago. Some lessons are re-learned over time and not every lesson sticks forever.

A great example of this is the fact that this is not my first time taking leadership in something. I had to lead my Boy Scout troop as a high schooler for two years in a row. I was a leader in training at Whole Foods Market. And now, I stand in a similar spot, yet it’s totally different. Funny how my perspectives have changed while the opportunities keep coming back. So I had to go back to my word for 2016, clarity. In that year, I had started my leadership training role at Whole Foods Market. I was looking forward to the challenges. By the next year, I had been fired from that job and moved back to Texas. That went well, yeah? Even my Eagle Scout project, one which also needed a modicum of leadership to complete, was eventually replaced by an even better project. And yet, I was told that I started something important when I made my project happen. I learned that my influence on the Boy Scout troop lasted for a good while after I stopped being a leader for the group. Looking back now, (and feeling a good bit emotional about it) I never admitted that I excelled in those roles. Sure, none of those roles turned out perfectly, but maybe my strengths and goals didn’t lie in those aspects of work and life. I didn’t want to call myself excellent because they felt outside of my purview to judge. Other people judged my accomplishments and built on them, which felt equally humbling and saddening. I would sooner belittle my own work than be offended, though I did feel offended in some circumstances.

Looking back now, it’s okay to be offended. Because I could have done better, could have created a better project, could have been a better employee at Whole Foods and probably not been fired. But where would I be if I didn’t have those failures? Where would anyone else be without seeing my shortcomings but still appreciating my vision? I’m not perfect or the best example of anything, but I do excel when I have the chance. 2024, my year to excel, of excellence in general, is nothing but bright. It wouldn’t be this bright without having failed and learning from those failures. I haven’t always been the best leader, so maybe this is one way to excel and make up for my failures in the past. I mean, it can’t hurt to try again when I know how to be better. I know I want this job, I know I can do the job. It’s time to be excellent, dudes.

Chris P.

The Shift is a dramatic sci-fi adaptation of the book of Job in the bible. The intended audience are practicing Christians and Angel Studios—the studio in charge of the movie—is headed by Mormons. I want to get that fact out of the way mostly so you understand the intention of the movie and to understand that I really can’t spoil the movie if you know the story it’s adapting. But I don’t want to spoil the experience of the movie, other than to point out how it could be better. It has some artful moments, not to mention a very clear purpose to the message it shares. That message is primarily portrayed by our hero, Job. Though in this movie, his name is Kevin Garner.

The second time we meet Kevin, he is down in the dumps. He’s lost his job and he’s contemplating his first drink of alcohol in a long time, his Alcoholics Anonymous coin appearing to be the last part of his dignity left to kill. I’ve never been fired like that before, but I have been fired. Let’s just say he takes it a lot harder than I do, but it is still devastating. And then a woman approaches him at the bar, insults him, and then they flirt. Now, I did try to be open-minded to the story, but this entire scene is awkwardly written and acted. I cringed considerably at this point. Not only because I find that movie romance is horribly unrealistic, but because this entire premise on which they meet is extremely childish. The only part I liked is when he pushed away his pint of beer and offered to take her out for tea. And I’ll admit some bias, it would be nice to go out for tea with someone. After that, we move into a montage of joy and marriage. Right up until it’s not, but I won’t give anything else away.

This early scene put a bad taste in my mouth and I was worried I’d end up being upset by the end. I’m glad to say that didn’t last long. We quickly get to the meat of the story, meeting The Benefactor and getting a taste of his goals. Here, I want to point out the very different acting abilities of Kevin and The Benefactor. Kevin, portrayed by Kristoffer Polaha, is really unimpressive in these first few scenes. Another bad taste, I feared. But acting opposite him was Neal McDonough, chewing the scenery as The Benefactor. In fairness, there are many performances that would feel wooden compared to his skill. And also in fairness, I believe the script did Kristoffer very few favors in these beginning scenes. Later on, I would retract my concern as the script gives him emotion and investment. I won’t harp much on the acting from here on out.

The Benefactor takes Kevin to a nice restaurant and offers him a lucrative job, though he doesn’t explain much about it. Kevin, in a moment of incredible clarity, realizes that The Benefactor is Satan himself. He refuses the offer and begins to pray in front of The Benefactor, his chosen path of defiance. This angers The Benefactor to the point of outright yelling until he disappears. With no explanation of what or why, Kevin leaves. But not before apologizing to a family he wronged through negligence. See, The Benefactor showed Kevin his power: the ability to shift people from one reality to another. Kevin, unconvinced, demands proof. The waitress at the restaurant, who was forced to sit with the pair and fed steak from the end of a knife (a really well done bit), was shifted by our villain. Her family watched in horror and broke down in tears seeing Tina whisked away with no promise of ever returning. Kevin knows he made a terrible mistake and has no way to atone because he has goals of his own.

A little context here, Kevin found out in that conversation with The Benefactor that his wife Molly was shifted from him some time ago, which is why his marriage was falling apart. He was offered the chance to get her back and more if he chose to do as The Benefactor requested of him. Kevin’s refusal was actually a catalyst, in a way. A title card shows up and we learn that five years pass since that day. The Benefactor has been gone all this time and the world knows of “The Kevin that Refused.” This makes Kevin a refugee, living in a terrible hotel and eating beans out of a can. The world at large is dystopian, with poverty and a lack of jobs. The government of this city, somehow tied to The Benefactor, seems unconcerned with these issues. A news broadcast shows only good things in the world, not the squalor of the city at large.

I cringed at this point as well, fearing a highly political message was about to be dropped in my lap. But I actually find that it didn’t force a particular view. Rather, this government has no obvious parallels to current government, other than a couple of throwaway lines. The focus remained on the story and message, which I was thankful for. Kevin is still practicing his religion, which seems to be outlawed at the behest of The Benefactor. In fact, it’s more accurate to say that the government worships The Benefactor. While there is not obvious political messaging, one can easily read into it and interpret it according to your political values. I chose not to do this because I’ve heard people from any sort of background talk about the same dystopian literature and media as if it’s in reference to their political opponents. Believe me, I get tired of people talking about 1984 as if it’s happening today. And I’m not saying these stories are not important, but their interpretations are extremely varied and skewed in favor of someone’s personal worldview. I am not going to act as though I’m qualified to describe political manifestos, but I do have a strong opinion about people who try to “other” their opponents and ultimately cut off the ability to consider opposing viewpoints. The Shift has a clear message that this dystopian and almost fascist government has “othered” religion and those in poverty. Though the reasons and how it came to be that way isn’t clear.

I say all this because I think the setting is meaningless without the story happening within that setting. We’re here to learn about Kevin, the modern cousin to Job. They both lose everything: wealth, family, and health. But Kevin, like Job ultimately did, perseveres. Kevin tries to do good in a broken world, giving away what little he has. This includes trying to remember The Bible by heart. He has a typewriter and is writing—at the time we see him—the book of Job. Fitting! His friend Gabriel is taking these pages and claims they are bringing hope to the people. They met at their workplace, which is the typical oppressive government job of moving stones. Quite the trope, but again, the setting isn’t vital.

For the first half of the film, we experience the world that Kevin is trapped in and learn his goals. The world is inhabited by Shifters, people with a special wrist device that allows them to shift between realities. Kevin is shown this device by The Benefactor when they meet. Knowing what it is, Kevin has decided he needs to acquire this device and go find his wife so they can be happy again. Unfortunately, shifters are not easy to find because everyone wears hoodies and jackets so their wrists are always covered. Yes, that’s an easy way to hide, isn’t it? I let this contrivance go, because I do think such a power would not be handed out readily by The Benefactor. There’s a good reason why Kevin’s refusal rattles the world, and that’s because no one else has ever refused the offer before. Those who do must be entirely loyal to The Benefactor, otherwise his world would fall apart. Moving on, Kevin is essentially exchanging his writing of The Bible with Gabriel for information on shifters. Gabriel initially doesn’t seem to have anything of value for Kevin, but Kevin doesn’t give up and Gabriel encourages him to continue because of the aforementioned hope Gabriel sees in the people who read the writings. Though, Gabriel himself claims he’s not read them, which Kevin suggests he should.

Something described early in the film is an interesting technology of this world called Vica-viewing. Cleverly using the word “vicarious” with viewing as an allegory of movies. But the technology is a way to view other realities. Specifically, yourself in other realities, although that’s not explicitly described. Kevin has used this before in search of his wife, but he gave up some time ago. How he can view the woman who is his wife in one reality isn’t explained, or I might have forgotten. Nonetheless, Kevin is encouraged to try the Vica-viewer again by Gabriel because it might make him feel better. Kevin stops by one such establishment, run by someone he knows. He is reluctant, but upon seeing the owner, manages to convince himself and the man—Russo—to let him use the machine.

From here on out, the movie begins to get more serious about the story. Kevin finds his wife while using the Vica-viewer. And not just some other version of her, the actual woman who was shifted from his reality. He knows it’s her when he sees a necklace he gave her after their son was lost (implied to have been kidnapped). Angel Studios also made Sound of Freedom, a recent movie that told a story involving human trafficking, so there is a clear through-line for their messaging. I don’t know if that was intentional, but it is notable. Regardless, Kevin is positive it is her because no other version of her has that necklace. No telling how many versions of her exist, but it’s not important. Kevin is now adamant that he must get to this reality. Unfortunately, he leaves the “scanning” portion of the Vica-viewer and Russo didn’t see the “address” of the reality that Kevin saw. But Kevin pleads with Russo to allow him to come back with a Shifter bracelet and shift to that reality. Russo grudgingly agrees and Kevin leaves. But not long after this, things become much worse. The Benefactor, after five years away, has returned. You didn’t think he’d just be gone for the whole movie, did you? Honestly, I was scared he might be.

I don’t want to describe the movie in detail from here on out, because this is when it actually builds a story and a case for the message. At this point, it’s on you to take it in and experience it. But I can describe how I felt in this rising action. In short, it’s good until it isn’t. I didn’t really like the ending we got because it’s far too clean and simple, but that’s also because Job ends the same way. And in truth, it ends the way it does because the message is that God blesses those who are faithful. We saw Job and Kevin at their lowest. Job with nothing by the cloth on his back, at least until he tears it in anguish. Kevin, with his goals and plans constantly beaten by the power and evil of The Benefactor, who orchestrated all his worst experiences. Literally in the same way that Job was tortured and tempted by Satan. There is a certain level where Job feels relatable, especially now. Many people feel like the world is falling apart around them, and not specifically the world at large. Tragedies and personal suffering break people down and make them feel as though they have nothing. Job suffers all of that and is clearly tempted by Satan at his lowest points. But the way that Job pulls through is by his faith.

Framing the story of Job in this way, through a sci-fi lens, is intriguing. The story of Job, though fascinating, is also unbelievable in quite a few ways. Not least because the only detailed parts of the story are at the worst moments of Job’s life, but also because the good times are relegated to short passages. And the perspective we have while watching The Shift is completely devoid of God’s perspective, other than The Benefactor explaining that God allowed him to hurt Kevin. And of course, this leads to the confrontation in the movie and a very important interpretation of Job: Why does God let bad things happen?

The movie posits that these are tests at a couple of points, but also claims that God doesn’t simply allow bad things. Rather, it’s that people are capable of good and being better. Humanity is flawed, but when viewed from a certain perspective (Kevin’s), are full of hope and kindness. Kevin keeps his faith and his hope because of this. I can’t say for certain that this is a quality exegesis of Job’s plight, but it does adapt the story in a way that people will find easy to understand.

All-in-all, The Shift accomplishes an interesting goal. Adapting a Bible story for modern audiences has a twofold purpose of simplifying a story written in complicated poetry as well as portraying Job in a manner like we’ve seen in other movies. This movie couldn’t exist without the dystopian media that preceded it, seeing as it relies on those tropes to frame the narrative in a way we’re familiar with. So sure, it’s unoriginal in a few ways, but the goal was framing and adapting. And any movie with a message would do well to consider these methods and the skill it takes to make this kind of story work.

It’s no masterpiece, by any stretch. But it does offer an interesting take. And while the beginning of the movie was incredibly awkward, it got better. In particular, Kristoffer Polaha—whom I disparaged at the beginning—showed a lot more acting ability as his situation got more dire. Something in particular that I appreciated was Kevin showing vulnerability and the willingness to cry or even break down in stressful situations. Often, men are portrayed as silently emotional and bottling it all up. Which, Kevin does this in some ways, but it’s fair to say his environment doesn’t take kindly to vulnerability. That’s a parallel to our reality that I often hate. Men expected to be tough or fight. Kevin almost never chose to fight with hands or guns. He fought on his knees (praying), expressed his anguish through emotional outbursts, or cried uncontrollably when seeing his partner that he loved. Kevin is actually a good ideal of a man, being basically non-violent (only considering violence when he felt it was his only option), emotionally open, and willing to be seen as vulnerable.

I’ve been wary of Christian movies on the big screen. I feel like the message takes more precedence than the story being good or the characters making sense. And especially when it comes to Christian movies trying to portray our world and disregard facts and laws in favor of The Bible being paramount to anything that is “man-made” by comparison. Which I find irksome, not because I claim that the Bible is entirely man-made, but that it’s arrogant to portray a single book overruling everything else. I understand the point is that God is more powerful than anything humans will ever make, but I take offense when the story struggles to acknowledge that the very same book is extremely complicated and requires tons of interpretation to reach the conclusions a Christian movie comes to. God’s Not Dead tries to reduce atheism to nihilism, at least in the way I remember it. And The Shift isn’t innocent when it comes to the message being given with little to no doubt in the premise. The climax shows The Benefactor being stunned by words and a miracle, despite being the most loquacious character in the movie. But I also think that’s because this is Satan realizing he’s lost in this moment. In other movies, when an atheist or some anti-Christian entity is “defeated”, it feels hollow. I have never liked the idea of defeating someone who doesn’t agree with you, even if there’s some legal precedent (such as religious freedom). Perhaps because I don’t feel oppressed, but I would contend that most people seeing these movies have not experienced true oppression.

I know I’m starting to get a bit preachy here, but understand that I am uncomfortable with fighting people when my favorite passages in the Bible involve loving people. The most important commandments, as described by Jesus, are loving God and loving people. Interpretations of loving a person in a religious sense are being hotly debated, I think. I don’t have all the right answers on this topic, just what I feel is right. Which, getting back to the movie, is essentially the conclusion Kevin comes to. Bad things can happen and these terrible things are not caused by God. They are technically allowed by God, which is a debate for other people to have. But people are capable of good, and God ostensibly wants His people to be good. Kevin chooses selflessness over his own goals, choosing to create good for others because that’s an important way to serve God. I found that to be a moving testimony, even if it’s somewhat vague in application.

This movie and my interpretation of it come at an important time of my life. I’m at a crossroads between faith and doubt. And I know some of my family will find that concerning and surprising, but I think I’ve made it clear for years now that I work through debates and discussions in my head. I’ve been told to get to church more, but I make excuses regarding how I’m bothered by Christianity at large. Conversations with some of my best friends are often very cynical of Christians at large. But that’s just “at large.” I’ll admit I haven’t been taking a personal look at these things, just the big picture. I feel I have valid reasons to be angry with Christians, but they are just humans with flaws like myself. Getting back into a church (if I do) will take time because I worry I won’t see the love I want to see. And right now, that’s the first thing I want to see. The ins and outs of sin and what’s supposed to be tolerated will only make me angry. People trying to be “not of this world” should exemplify that radical love, seeing as that’s a core tenet of Christianity. I’ve felt this way as I tried to understand this world I’m in. I learned a lot by keeping my head out of the sand, which I sometimes fear many Christians don’t do in order to be more “faithful”. I’m no scholar of either of the Bible or filmmaking and I hope you understand I’m not trying to be. My skills and knowledge lie elsewhere, so I need some leeway while I figure myself out and understanding that I’m not trying to disparage any particular worldview.

The last thing I’ll say is that The Shift accomplishes a fascinating goal. View a complex story through a modern lens. I read Job quite a few times when I was younger and I think I will read it again to see the angle the filmmakers hoped to achieve more clearly. My early readings did not yield much in terms of understanding. It felt alien and out of place, and the debates and discussions between Job and his friends were beyond my reasoning. Yet I remembered the purpose of the story, to show that strong faith reaps goodness. It’s hard to see that in a normal, mundane life. Told through dystopia, science fiction, and drama, the story becomes tangible. Even though it’s actually implausible in almost every way, it is engaging; most stories are fiction and basically impossible, yet still we derive meaning and understanding from them. There is a reason why film interpretation is commonplace.

I enjoy thinking, even about something which worries me. Lately, it has been my faith and purpose, not to mention mortality. I have no conclusions to make about where I stand, so I can’t exactly tie up this essay in a satisfying way. But I can say that having my thoughts provoked by The Shift felt good. And these thoughts weren’t even prevalent while watching. I only made sense of how I felt in the days of processing and the evening of writing I’ve just completed. And if a film accomplished that, I would say it’s worth considering. 

The novel takes inspiration from Michael Crichton’s stories of science and thrill, while other influences of Star Trek and Babylon 5 inform my characters and themes. I made a project page on nanowrimo.org so you can follow the progress. I won’t be posting the most up-to-date version online because I like to at least do some proofreading before sharing. Keep in mind this is all pretty much first draft writing. I welcome the criticism, of course. I love the story I’m writing and I’ll consider points that make it even better. I just hope you love it too, reader!

Chris P.

Jumping off from 2022 being the year of fire, I would say I marginally accomplished that. I started that year with some big goals regarding life and career. Ultimately, I did very little of what I planned, but plans always change. And I’ll be honest, I don’t have many play-by-play details for 2022. I settled into a rhythm of work and home. That sounds a little sad to say, but I actually think it was somewhat therapeutic. Looking back, having a regular schedule and actually enjoying what I do never quite met in the middle. I have spent quite a lot of time becoming more social with coworkers, working hard to improve myself in my career skills, and creating a more consistent home life. It’s not all I had wanted to do at the beginning of the year, especially considering I spent quite a few Thursday evenings with my family book club talking about “Shift(ing) Into A Higher Gear.” Many plans were considered, then implemented or thrown out. Most of those plans were provoked by that book club meeting and most of them didn’t come to fruition. Yet, I find that my mindset was shifting even as very little was being accomplished. I cared more about wasted time and utilizing it. I spent more “brain hours” on positive thinking, though I admit there is still a long way to go there.

Another big change, but not one that affected me directly, is my roommate transitioning from male to female. I’ve known her for basically a decade and we’ve had quite a few conversations about life, trauma, and how we feel. Thus, her decision to transition makes sense to me. I’m not afraid to share details about how the decision came about, but it’s not my story to tell. Honestly, I’m only saying this because I want to normalize the idea that people change, yet always stay the same. My friend is still my friend and I think her choice is her own. Not to mention she’s spent years dealing with the core issues that kept her from seeing who she truly is. If you disagree, I’m not sure what else to say to you. Trans people are still people and I’m about as humanist as you can get. I don’t want to get into moralizing or ideologies because this essay is about my experiences. My experience with LGBTQIA people has been positive and I encourage others to listen before they dismiss these people.

I often belittle myself. I don’t take praise well, I try and deflect it. Why is that? Was it how I was raised? Am I just naturally this way? What causes my lack of confidence? All these questions have been swirling in my head for the past five or so years and very few have actual answers. But I’ve been coming to terms with what causes these problems and it’s something I’ve known about since I was a teenager. ADHD. In media, ADHD is usually depicted as high energy and mid-to-low functioning people. Yet it’s much more complex than that. There have been more studies conducted lately and conversations about those studies have landed in my lap quite a lot in the past few years. I never thought much of my ADHD diagnosis, but the more I read and compare notes, I realize it’s at the core of many difficulties I have faced. That’s not to say it’s all bad, I think there is a certain kind of superpower to ADHD. Power comes at a cost, of course. I’m still trying to make sense of how ADHD affects me and how I can use it, so I don’t have much for concluding this passage. All I can say is my awareness is helping me get through things I didn’t understand before. And just to clarify, for the sake of my mother and others, ADD was my original diagnosis, but it’s been put under the umbrella of ADHD and the different forms it takes. Read about it! It’s fascinating.

Getting down to brass tacks, how did I end up taking a new job and moving? Simple, it just wasn’t the original plan. I started the year with plans and ended up taking an entirely different path. Remember that fire, no matter how powerful and devastating, is influenced by the wind. I sought to better myself at the beginning of the year. I would say that was accomplished, but not how I intended. I don’t think anyone can say that any one year went exactly as they planned, of course. There may be exceptions, but I digress. I spent this year thinking about how things can be better and how I can go about doing that. It came down to a job application for a company in San Antonio, hoping for better pay and more focus on something I really want to learn. The winds shifted suddenly and it turned into a job in Austin. So here I am. And it’s not just the job that’s shifting, we’re talking such a massive wind that the direction of the wildfire took a sharp right. Metaphorically, of course. Now I am tasked with finding my own place to live and everything that comes with it. I don’t plan on buying a house as of yet, but I’m still going to become more independent. What a daunting year!

As I think about it, this is exactly what needed to happen in a year of fire. I needed to start in a direction that feels good. That path had fuel enough to sustain this fire for as long as needed. But maybe that wasn’t enough. The wind is whimsical, flowing wherever it likes, neither does it care what a fire needs. Still, it came and turned an acceptable path into one with more fuel, at least in my opinion. This new direction isn’t easier by any stretch, but it’s more my own. And before you ask, wind is not related to the word of the year. I think some of you are probably wondering what the job is. The reality is, there are likely some NDAs that I’m not fully aware of yet, so I can’t give a lot of details. I can say that I will be working at Tesla, the electric car company (or technology company, as they claim to be). I’ll keep the rest on a short leash until I know what I can and cannot talk about. But yes, for those wondering, it’s incredibly exciting. I’ve worked with large companies in the past, but none quite this professional. I really want to put my all into this job because I feel it leads to more opportunities.

So, what does this mean for my word? Hard to say. There’s still a lot of fire in my belly, but it’s not going to fit for this year. I can’t use a word related to electricity because…come on, I’m not that silly. Despite my weird writing style. Frankly, as with many years in the past, finding the right word is a process that works best when I’m actually writing this essay. I often have to go back and skim my previous essays to get a feeling for my mindset. I also feel like I’ve talked about this a lot in my other essays, basically a trope at this point. It’s always the same challenge, just a different time. That could be considered a very vague description of life as an adult.

I’ve really been all over the place in my life. Very few consistencies and things to rely on. I moved so much in the past ten years that it’s hard to put it all in perspective. I know people from every state I’ve lived in, worked at multiple places with very different employees and managers, and I never lived in one place for very long. San Antonio was the first time I stayed in one place for long. And I remember wanting to stay there for five years. Well…I didn’t quite make that, but four months is close enough, I guess. I often talked about the many moves I made as a really stressful point of my life. Almost as if it was still affecting me years later. But that’s not really true, practically speaking. I determine the overall experience in the places I live. And that’s going to be the case here. I’ve looked at opportunities in the area, most not even related to my workplace. I purchased a mountain bike because I need to get out more, I learned about areas of Austin that are nice to visit, thought about the kinds of groups I’d like to get involved in.

With all that said, I think I know what needs to happen this year. My attention is more focused, my goals more clear. Every word I’ve used in the past always leads into the next in some way; guiding principles or metaphors for the next period of my life. The weirdest kind of New Year’s resolutions. And it’s good to have those resolutions and goals, even if they don’t pan out. The new year is about new things, even if it’s just humanity ascribing emotional connection to another trip on a rock orbiting a burning ball of gas. Nonetheless, we find ourselves captivated by it all. I am feeling that now, especially heading into a lot of unknowns. 2023 will be my year of captivation. Things are going to be complex in the months to come, but it’ll be nothing like what I’ve done before. So I’d better go in with my eyes wide open and capturing every detail I can. No resting on my laurels or hoping for something better. I walk this path and I have to make it count.

Chris P.