2024 was the year of:

• Learning math
• Proof-based linear algebra, probability theory, simplicial topology/homology, completed the calculus track, introduction to proofs
• First time attempting to seriously self-learn (basic algebraic geometry & group theory & point-set topology)
• Was in a reading program (metric spaces)
• Introduction to type theory & formal verification
• Learning Russian
• Two semesters of college classes, buoyed by many hours of immersion on my own time
• Experience as a teaching assistant
• Tens of hours of introspection with a friend (who I don’t talk to much anymore, though I’m thankful for our past conversations)
• Email correspondence
• Listening phases throughout the months, loosely ordered:
• Birdsong, bugsong, the wind, the rain, a train’s whistle.
• Наутилус, Би-2, Аукцыон, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Sade, Jens Lekman, Invisible, Lee Minhwi, Onnine Ibalgwan, Ichiko Aoba, Mass of the Fermenting Dregs, Red House Painters, Silver Jews, Smog/Bill Callahan.
• Notable movies: Let There Be Light, Little Miss Sunshine, Paradise: Faith & Paradise: Love, The Graduate, Festen (rewatch), Manchester by the Sea
• Notable books: Crossroads, Infinite Jest, The Savage Detectives & By Night in Chile, Woman in the Dunes, The Emigrants, For The Time Being
• A lot of time to consider my trajectory & future. Still no clear resolution in sight. Chronic embarassment.

2025 will be the year of:

• Physical collections
• Postcards, print outs of paintings and writing taped to the wall
• S has his Pokemon cards & I have my pieces of late aughts Japanese fashion & K has his wax seals
• Drawing
• Go to the student art center weekly or biweekly
• Stop mindlessly drawing solely in the margins of your notes. Carve out a time in which you can dedicate your focus to a full drawing.
• Reading (physical books, not a screen, when possible)
• The Pale King by David Foster Wallace
• The Peregrine by J. A. Baker
• more of Annie Dillard, Kobo Abe, Thomas Bernhard, Bolaño, Salinger, & Nabokov
• Javier Marias
• Shusaku Endo
• Knut Hamsun
• Learning math
• PDEs
• Real & complex analysis
• Mathematical logic
• Abstract algebra
• Measure theory

Take more notes, on everything.

Don’t be so afraid of existing in the open. Everything is a lot more transient than you think.

Don’t avert yourself from silence.

You’re not incompetent, and if you are in some things, you can change this. Prepare the best you can, but don’t worry about asking stupid questions. Take time to deeply consider. Apply the skills you are most confident in, wherever you can.

Your inability to relate to others is at least partially a function of how you present yourself. Don’t see yourself as being condemned to immutable aberrance; you’re not. Be as honest and open as possible.

Remember what Teilhard de Chardin wrote: All that is really worthwhile is action. Personal success or personal satisfaction are not worth another thought.

Remember your tattoo & what Tarkovsky wrote: Strength and hardness are death’s companions. Weakness and flexibility are expressions of the freshness of life.

Remember this: It seems to me a sign of the presence of God, that it lies there lengthwise, and not crosswise.

David Foster Wallace told himself: Not another word & Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote: Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.