The main place I hang out online is the llllllll.co, which is a message board mostly for people who work in music and sound. At the end of each year, artist and musician Marcus Fischer starts a new thread for people to discuss their goals for the coming year. The following is what I wrote on Lines, as the message board is called, ahead of 2024:
-How was 2023 for you?
Ups and downs. Net up by the end.
-What concepts/principals are you thinking about for the new year? How do they relate to the world around you (locally and globally)?
I think it’s pretty simple: focus, do more but selectively, take more breaks intentionally.
Staying focused — I got a new pair of glasses last month, and even though my prescription has barely changed, the simple fact of them being new (unscratched, un-smudged, slightly adjusted) means everything looks noticeably sharper. I’m taking this observation as a sign to strive to look at things more sharply and concertedly in the coming year. Pretty much by definition, to focus on one thing means to let other things recede.
Keeping my head down — Related to the above: You don’t need to be a time traveler from the future to identify 2024 as a divisive year, at least here in the U.S. I, for one, can easily get caught up in the anticipation of game-changing moments that never come.
Winnowing and organizing — In a novel I just finished reading, Sean Michaels’ Us Conductors, based on the life of Leon Theremin, the inventor suddenly is told he needs to, within 24 hours, return to Russia from the U.S. permanently after many years stateside. Asked by the movers what he’s taking with him, Theremin replies something along the lines of “The oldest, the newest, and the best.” There’s a lesson in that. There’s a term along these lines that has been making the rounds: Swedish death cleaning. I’m not entirely sure how much it even exists, as I’ve had some Swedish students who haven’t known what I’m talking about when I’ve brought it up, but in any case: the idea of trimming back so things are more manageable for others after you’re gone. (That sounds a bit morbid, so to be clear: I just wanna streamline a bit.)
-What old things do you want to shed and what new things would you like to cultivate?
Taking the word “things” literally first, I have a heap of old vinyl and CDs I don’t listen to much, so I’ll be ripping much of it and making physical space by getting rid of it. I’ve long joked that if I sold all my vinyl I could easily put an upright piano where the records are, and while I mean it more metaphorically than literally, I think the metaphor is a valuable one.
I recently stepped back from administering a Slack I’d moderated since 2016 and doing so has been a freeing experience. I’m thinking about what else I can step back from. There isn’t much, but I’m thinking about it.
Transition time — bus rides, long lunches, and liminality in general have long since declined in my life, and I need to bring back that attenuated interstitial aspect of existence. Midday walks are an attempt — a step forward, as it were. As is not keeping email open all the time during daylight hours.
Time zones — I am generally more productive in the morning, so I’m trying to schedule stuff involving other people later in the day, to the extent that I can.
Plex time — I recently set up Plex as a means to collate my vast and ever-growing collection of digital audio. Doing so has been centering, though the whole thing may turn out to be a fool’s errand — or in this case, a fool’s chore.
-What would you like to accomplish? Do you have a plan for making it happen?
Finish writing a book. Maybe two.
Send some short stories to magazines.
Write more in general.
Put together some standalone recording projects, adjacent to the Disquiet Junto, along the lines of the commission projects I did before forming the Junto, like Our Lives in the Bush of Disquiet, Instagr/am/bient, and LX(RMX) / Lisbon Remixed, among others.
Put my podcast back together. That appeals to a whole different constituency than reads what I write. (I say this every year, but maybe this year I’ll do it.)
As for the plan, the plan is what I wrote at the top: focus, as well as giving myself meaningful breaks. Also, do more project proposal outreach — I tend to do things I’m invited to do, rather than inquire about collaborations and opportunities.
