We're soooo back
I just got a new laptop and I’m not going to say having a 6 year old laptop with a keyboard that no longer registered the “i” key anymore was an excuse for going an entire year without writing anything but I kinda feel like it is. Also in the last year, I moved back to the U.S. after a wild couple years of funemployment and got my first full time job and that really made me feel like a chump for awhile. But I just logged into substack after scrolling on my phone for legit 5 hours nonstop and saw a post called “I feel like 2025 is my last chance (at everything)” by Sherry Ning. And I had a visceral but very subtle feeling like this too was my last chance. Like “I feel like this minute is my last chance (at ever writing something again)”.
I always say I’m going to publish a books list and I never do, so this seems like a not-daunting-enough starting point.
Even less daunting than a list, I will just share one book. I recently finished reading “The Brothers Karamazov” by Fyodor Dostoevsky. After the first 600 pages, I was like what the fuck I don’t remember a single thing I just read except for “The Grand Inquisitor”, which I consumed laying out in Mission Dolores Park in San Francisco on an extremely rare Sunny Monday. I took that as a very bad sign and almost gave up. But then… probably around page 800 out of 875, it finally got good. Upon finishing, I see how it was a masterclass in a slow burn. I recently watched the movie, “Paris Texas” directed by Wim Wenders, and I would say it was very much the same cadence. You spend the majority of the time frustrated with these opaque and nonsensically dramatic characters, only for their humanity and a shocking arc to be unveiled in a masterful monologue at the very end.
Back to the whole moving back to America, after a year living in Vietnam and traveling to about 15 countries, making me feel like a huge chump. I supposed the theme of this year has been about the Slow Burn. Learning to embrace it and all. The lesson I keep having to relearn over and over again is the value of stillness, slowness, emptiness, bareness. And that whether I’m jetsetting the world or rotting in a cubicle, I am still alive and for as long as I live, I will suffer. And that’s just the human experience!
I guess my 2025 intentions are to embrace two things. First is negative space, because that’s where I feel like my creativity unfolds. Trying to schedule in more unstructured hours of time to stare at walls and scribble in notebooks and see what emerges. Second is artistry and self-growth and vulnerability and understanding and connecting, which is what writing is to me. I’ve been really inspired recently by Doechii, who just came out with her mixtape “Alligator Bites Never Heal”. I’ve been devouring her interviews and I feel like she is just a writer at heart. “Doubt breeds chaos”….. “Denial is a river”…. like that shit is profound!!! She is a rockstar and sensitive and devoted, and inspiration is so precious and contagious, so I am sharing mine in hopes it will resonate.
I hope you are having a wonderful and safe and warm holiday season. I am very grateful and aware of the immense privileges I have in my life, having stable and safe and clean shelter, water, food, which is not the reality for so many people with the ongoing genocide in Palestine and the crisis of homelessness in America. I feel more steadfast than ever, especially with the recent Red Sweep in the American elections, that we are responsible for each other, and we have the power to take care of each other.
Love yours,
Chau