January 2025

Jan 2025

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I’m cheating here because I’m writing this on March 9 2025.

The point of these archives is to recount what happened over the last month right when the month ends. This is to get a “screenshot” of the things that actually impacted me in the moment – to create a more consistent memory.

I have trouble writing these and sending them out when it feels like I’m not doing much – that things aren’t exciting me.

The state of the world and having to adjust my behavior and actions in accordance with the times bums me out and makes me reconsider my output. If there is a certain order in the world, our work has to reflect that in order to be meaningful or provide value. New social order emerges and old modes have to be swapped out.

My output was lower in January – I wasn’t drawing as much, I wasn’t taking as many pictures. I wasn’t writing code. I was sitting around probably watching YouTube. I really am not proud of this but I had no creative energy at all. In Chicago where there are actual winters I used to spend my free time skateboarding in the summer and drawing in the winter. In LA at the beginning I didn’t draw at all but once I became single I did both a lot all the time. Suddenly I was in SF doing neither. Yikes

The whole time though I felt really lucky and content. I didn’t feel like I needed to have output to justify my existence, I didn’t feel like I had to work particularly hard at my job. I was chilling. I had an apartment in a city that made me feel good, what more did I need?

I still did things to try to get myself excited every now and then. I traveled to Sacramento and Dubai !! And would you believe it in Dubai I only took 28 pictures. The idea behind paying attention to how many pictures I take is it really shows how interested I am in the things around me. If I feel like “Okay I’m leaving the house right now and I’m about to see something interesting”. I think to bring my camera. I go outside and do see something interesting and then I think “I have to take a picture of this”. That is how a picture gets taken, so without that happening there’s no output.

It’s embarrassing to go to the other side of the world and not be able to see anything, to be too timid to get in the middle of some action and take a picture, bringing myself into the environment, a place where people can be like “stop taking this picture” and suddenly I’m IN it. I want to be engaging all the time – I only have one life to live and I want to experience as much as I can. I don’t want to spend life standing on the outside looking in, which is how it feels in lower energy periods like January 2025.

I flew into San Francisco Jan 1 2025 00:30 – we had champagne in paper cups on the plane. I landed in San Francisco and this guy was on the Bart with an Indian headdress and a crack pipe. I asked if I could take a picture of him he said hell yeah. First pic of 2025.