So Long, 2025...
This time of the year is when everyone gets retrospective and starts waxing poetic about everything they're grateful for. I am no different.
Folks, it's time to say goodbye to the big '25.
Looking back, this year has been (yet another one) full of changes. I grew a lot in a job that I loved and had to leave it to chase bigger dreams. I've had to adapt to that new dream being more restrictive and more liberating than I imagined. I moved twice, got dumped and am now living in a new country. Hell, a tornado went down my street back in May, and that was insane! This is all to say that the past year has been an exercise in learning how to roll with the punches and retain some semblance of oneself after the fact.
When writing down all these changes, it's obvious how much is different from twelve months ago. But it's hard to really understand that we are changing as it happens; usually things kind of pass without you noticing until suddenly you look up and realize you can't deny it anymore. I suppose that's why the calendar is a useful tool, in that it gives us a reason to poke our heads up and zoom out a bit to see the bigger picture every now and then. Here are a bunch of thoughts I've organized that are related to the passage of time and how the last year has been.
A few weeks ago I went to thanksgiving with my friends here in town. We each contributed a dish, and I made cornbread. It was lumpy and sweet, and generally well-received from what I can tell. We are a syndicated sitcom-ass friend group and I feel like I'm the Kramer of the bunch. Lately we've watched The Muppet Christmas Carol and played some Go Fish. I am grateful to have new people I can spend my time with, as well as old friends who have more experience listening to and understanding me. I am grateful for the acceptance and support I receive from my family and my therapist; talking with them helps me better reckon with the human experience of feeling impossibly unique in a world that is itself a collection of unique individuals.
I am grateful for my life here in Spain, this is goated as hell. I am grateful for my mentor and coworkers who have taken me in and provided me with responsibility and opportunity. I am grateful for the scores of students I see day after day and joke around with. I am grateful for enormous lunches and siesta culture. I am grateful for a relatively cheap and accessible high-speed rail system. I am grateful for my peers in judo who push me to improve myself and lead a life without needless apprehension. I am grateful for my lute and for my years of training in music; without this experience and appreciation already baked in, I doubt I would have the patience to continue my daily exercises.
More than that, I am grateful for the shortcomings and failures I have experienced - the lessons they teach are so valuable. To understand that things may not go your way and that it will be okay is such a powerful maneuver in navigating this world. I am not the first person to notice this, but it bears repeating: when a door you were looking to breach closes on you, it opens your eyes to all of the other doors lining the hallway that you hadn't perceived. Even though it may feel really bad in the short-term, I have found that these moments which remind me of my humility are among the most valuable.
Writing for this blog has been a revelation for me. I was feeling the itch to find a new way to express myself and share updates with friends, and ig wasn't cutting it anymore (it started to feel like a brainrot zone more than a tool for meaningful connection). It has been a few years since I have deliberately trained to use the written word, and so far I have loved getting back into form. Already I have felt my stamina and creative capacity increase, and I would like to continue to push myself in this way. Perhaps one day I'll start putting out 3,000 word posts or short stories more frequently - who's to say? For now, I am grinding my lute practice.
Recently in my life, I have made a better effort of reading for fun, a habit which admittedly I had largely neglected since my middle school days. My sweatiest book of 2025 has to be The Silmarillion by Tolkien. I have taken an appreciation to his world-building in Middle Earth, and therefore had to read what is essentially the creation story for the universe (followed up by a lot of elf drama). It amazes me that someone can essentially spend their whole life playing pretend, and if enough people are interested, it becomes a beloved media franchise that lasts for decades after the fact. The page-turner award for this year goes to Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. Shoutout to my roomie Noah for putting me on to this; CGAS grabs you by the throat from the jump and propels you through an adrenaline rush of a story. Heartbreaking and awe-inspiring, this novel deals with justice/love/loss/forgiveness in an approachable and effective manner (the storytelling done via footnotes has stuck with me).
My favorite book from 2025 is also my longest and craziest read: Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon. It took me three months (!!) to get through and most of the time didn't make any sense, and I think that's the point. This was my first Pynchon; it certainly has impressed me enough to consider some of his other works. Against the Day isn't really a story that's meant to be parsed, but rather one to be experienced. Following dozens of characters over multiple decades in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the reader slowly begins to perceive the changes in their lives and in their environment over the course of 1100 pages. Without being heavy-handed, Pynchon pins down so many of the complexities of modern life and human nature which confound and amaze us to this day. Because it took so long to finish, I felt changes within myself during the time I was reading, which only enhanced the experience for me. So many times while reading this I felt as if I had a mini-eureka moment, in which I came to some kind of emotional realization at the same time as the people on the pages. I have promptly passed this one on to my friends to try and get them to understand even a sliver of what I mean when I talk about this novel.
Of course I also watched a good number of films this year, although for whatever reason I tend not to see new releases in theaters like many of my other cinephile friends. Here are some lightning-round thoughts on various selections which I saw for the first time in 2025: Challengers had some of the best screenwriting (written by youtube legend Justin Kuritzkes). Lessons of Darkness had some truly spectacular - almost alien - visuals and was incredibly harrowing. Sinners was the best theater experience by far; the kind of film that makes you say "the movies are so back." Get Out was one that I've been meaning to see for so long and lived up to expectations. High and Low was my first Kurosawa, and he's putting on a blocking and shot composition clinic. Brief Encounter presents a tightly written and heartwrenching story (old films can be so good, guys). In Time was the best "so bad it rules" watch with my friend Ana. Working Girls has become one of my new favorite films, and showcases surprising depth with what is ultimately a small-scale vision. Finally, I want to give a special shoutout to City of Poets which I saw at SEMINCI. Keep the movies coming guys, I love it!
I don't use spotify anymore so I can't really get a data-driven look at my music habits this year. I guess I'll just take this time to talk about artists I like in general. Michael Cera Palin released their first full-length album We Could Be Brave this year, and Lumin Rain by Arc de Soleil was another enjoyable release. My recent listening has also been populated by various selections from Jim Croce, John Denver and Kacey Musgraves. Nao Sogabe has been an inspiration in the beginning of my lute journey, and I often listen to his work when writing these blog posts. Recently I've been getting Miles Davis recommended on youtube and that has been nice. To read more thoughts of mine on various songs sent to me by my friends, please do have a look at my post from last month:
benthusiast
This year I have started to really feel the pressure of time weighing upon my dreams and aspirations in this life. For essentially my entire young life, I have held this notion that the defining moments and actions of my story would come at some far-off point when I was older and wiser. Now that I am actually becoming older (and hopefully wiser), I am realizing that the present moment is what matters most for accomplishing your goals. Although my imagination is great enough to envision all varieties of future for myself, those images I hold will inevitably differ from the reality that I experience. There is simply not enough time to accomplish everything I would like to, which only makes the decision of how I spend my time more meaningful. Although this can be an anxiety-inducing thought, I have been learning to embrace the practice of patience, and allowing things to take the necessary time to develop. One does not cultivate a tree within a single year.
Taking steps every day in what feels the right way
brings me closer to where I would be;
unsure where I'm going, I just hope I'm growing
into the best version of me.
Christmas is coming, and the goose is getting fat. Random complaint: for whatever reason, people these days don't seem to understand that the twelve days of Christmas begin on 25 December and last through 5 January. Here in Spain it's more widely understood, likely because El Día de Reyes Magos is a significant celebration on the 6th (this is when they leave out milk and cookies, for example). At school I helped the sixth graders learn the carol of Good King Wenceslas, and we successfully performed it at the holiday showcase last week. Wenceslas was a real guy, and in my opinion serves as a great example of charity and goodwill. The man had resources as a duke and made it his mission to share them and provide for others. This is what love is, this is what care is, this is why bro wasn't actually royal in his lifetime but was posthumously given the title of king.
I guess this is all to say that we get to build and nurture the future we wish to see, and that starts today and now! My dear friend Beno once gave me an enlightening anecdote about heaven vs. hell: in hell, every person is inhibited by a ladle fastened to their outstretched arm. There is a communal stew, yet they starve as they cannot feed themselves due to the constraints of the ladle, the imperfections of their capacity. In heaven, curiously, the same conditions apply. The difference lies in the decision of one person to extend their ladle-arm and feed the person next to them, to no benefit of their own. All have their fill and are satisfied. This thought has remained with me, and I have tried to hold it close when reflecting on the uncertainty, fear and precarity that seems to cloud so much of the modern world.
2026 is gonna be craymazing (crazy + amazing) and I am so geeked to cultivate more friendships and deepen the ones I already have. Looking forward, I still have no idea where my life is heading; I can't tell you what I'll be doing in two years, let alone five or ten. Perhaps it's not so wise to continue my adult life in this pattern, but it has gotten me this far, and that's got to count for something. If you're still reading this far down, thank you and I wish you a healthy and prosperous new year. Remember that things always return in this life, and every missed opportunity will come around again in one form or another. Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards - damb...
Finally, I think the cultural image of an old guy representing the passing year and a newborn baby replacing him is really funny. I am imagining them both naked save for a diaper and a sash with the number of whichever year they represent over their shoulder. As you read this, we are collectively taking old man 2025 in our arm and walking him to the bench by the sea where he will finish his days. And then the camera will pan to a drooling infant (little 2026, how adorable!!) and apparently we're going to place all our trust and hopes and dreams into this kid. And it will be exactly how it should be.
