2020 in review · 1:56pm Dec 31st, 2020
I looked for a funny video to try and sum up my thoughts on this year, but after some thinking on the matter, I realised that "man screams in agony for ten hours" probably wasn't going to go across all that well. So here's Jimmy Barnes instead.
It's a cliché to say it's been a funny old year, but it really has. Even aside all the political bullshit, it's been a year of a lot of people making a lot of, lets say, very questionable decisions. I certainly did. I'm not going to go into detail, obviously, but it's fair to say that a year of near-complete isolation from friends and family, enforced rather than by choice, can do things to the mind. At least the wife and I had one another to lean on, which is something I'm grateful for.
I found time to write, but that seems to have fallen apart. I thought I'd be having a lot of time off, but I'm actually working more now than I did for any period last year. It's weird. Yet, somehow, I've still found time to fix a few niggling problems around the house.
On the topic of writing (which I suspect is all many of you care about), I've hit a wall. Again, the next chapter of Stars Shine Forth is nearly ready to publish, but it was supposed to be ready by the middle of the month. Quite frankly, I'm getting tired of this. Not of writing, don't get me wrong. When I do actually have the chance and the energy to write, it's great.
No, I'm tired of not living up to even the most basic expectations that I set for myself. I've been writing this fic for years. I bet most of its original readers are long gone, either by attrition from the fandom, or boredom, or for any number of reasons, good or bad. To those that have stuck around, I can only give my eternal gratitude (and soon more words).
This year has made me face up to the fact that I've been stagnating a great deal. Where before I could just say I was busy, and that's why things kept slipping, spending the year in a situation where I did have the time and space to do some of the things I had intended, and finding that they still slipped, has been enlightening. In a depressing way. Turns out that no, I'm not actually super busy and having to put things off: I'm lazy. Like a well-fed cat who has his eyes glued on a mouse, but can't be bothered to get up and actually chase it.
It's also made me face up to the fact that this is okay. As long as I'm honest with myself and everyone else, and as long as I don't start trying to put up a false image of proactivity and busyness, it's okay to be lazy. It's okay to not constantly drive myself to start new projects. It's okay to not even finish some of them (though I probably should finish some of them). I just have to stop cheating myself.
Oh, one more thing about those questionable decisions: when someone appears to act wildly out of character, rather than assuming that's their actual self, perhaps take it as a given that they are in fact wildly out of character for some reason. Don't swallow the lie that intoxication or stress, or extreme external influence, reveals the "true person". All it reveals is the result of shattered impulse control and loss of executive function. Calling that the "true person" would be like calling a car with a broken steering wheel, and a jammed-on horn, the "true car".
But yes, it's been a funny old year.
A dripping tap can fill a bathtub. So long as the words come, albeit slowly, the end will be reached. Hoping for more words from you *ahem*NoRoomForRegret*hem* in the new year.
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That's the plan. Just so long as fate doesn't decide it likes reruns...