I’ve been thinking a lot about what I wanted to personally work on this upcoming year; I have plenty of personal work but nothing really moved me.
But I ended up stumbling upon some family videos, some dating 10-20 years ago. I thought it would have been nice to watch a time that is bygone. And it was very nice, but it was also sobering. To have seen myself age and the people I love was a reality check I was unprepared for; not to mention the loss of all the people who passed on from this life. It made me ponder my own mortality; an unwelcome yet crucial reminder that I won’t have the people around me around forever; that the flow of time is inexorable and its deleterious effects on the body and everything physical. I also saw how much my mother has changed. Even though she will always be beautiful to me, despite the gentle wrinkles that grace her lovely face, I was confronted that she is not the same woman of my youth.
As I began to see all that changed with the passage of time, it made me think of man’s vulnerability and fragility. That we can’t stop the march of time and we can’t hold on to people forever; that life is beautiful yet transient; loss is inevitable and inherent in the human condition; that pain is the fate of every man.
So to counterbalance the intrinsic challenge of life, this year I committed to working on just being nicer to people. There’s already so much difficulty that being human encompasses, I wish not to add to that; and to whatever extent I can, to be a speck of positivity. Not a grand goal by any means, but something we all need, and something to aspire to.
2021