Improved Means for Achieving Deteriorated Ends

2024 Reflections

Written on 2025-01-01 14:45:00

Tagged as reflection goals

See also: 2023 Reflections, inspired by: insom and manuel

Personal 💜

Last year was heavy. Both of our dogs died and I left Calendly after 4 and a half mostly happy years. I have really struggled not to construct a story of death following me around the past 2 years since 2024 was preceded by the death of both my paternal uncles, my father, and my stepmother in 2023.

There were plenty of good things in 2024 too, chief among them travel and our new dog Mila that we adopted before Jurgen died. But I would be lying if I didn't say that grief and exhaustion were prominent emotions for me throughout the year. Norma, regular exercise, and music were helpful stabilizing forces.

Travel 🛫

There was a lot of travel to see people I loved this year.

It started off poorly though with a work trip to Palm Springs for the 2024 Calendly Kickoff. Morale wasn't great but the real blow came on Wednesday morning when Norma called from the vet because Seyla was having trouble breathing and she had to be put down. We knew she'd had cancer for a while that we weren't able to treat but it had been progressing slowly. Saying goodbye over the phone was awful. The dogs, and Seyla in particular, were the foundation of our relationship. I hated having to be far away not only from Seyla but also from Norma for a work event that seemed far from the sort of honest and frank conversations that could right the ship.

A month later I was back in California for one of the largest smash bros tournaments, Genesis X, with my best friend Max. I think we both played decently, going 2-2, but mostly we were just happy to be there. We've always been on a slightly odd fence between casual players and competitive ones, both watching and attending tournaments but not worrying about climbing the ranks. We're pretty old by the scene's standards after all. We went without expectations, which I've struggled with some, and just had a good time.

A few months later, I knew I was leaving Calendly. I had put in my 3 weeks notice after getting fed up with an inability to drive change at work. Norma and I went to NYC to visit Roni, who taught with me at the Flatiron School. Afterward, Norma stayed to attend the Westminster dog show with her college roommate and I flew to Halifax to visit my other best friend Aaron in his new digs. I got an offer to work for InvestNext while I was there.

Switzerland and Italy were a much needed reprieve. I had started at InvestNext which was going alright. But Jurgen died, very unexpectedly, the weekend after my 38th birthday. He had a very good recent health checkup, he was happy and playing with our new puppy the day before he died. But then he laid down and he didn't want to get up. I think his death was the most intense grief I've felt since my stepfather John died in 2009. I still miss him. Getting out of the country to see beautiful landscapes and relax with Norma was deeply needed.

Finally, I went out on a limb to Chicago for Town Con. I have a deep love for Nate, who founded Tilde Town, from working with him at my first job and for his poetic spirit and his sense of aesthetics. If everyone in tech thought about the way computers impact people the way Nate does, I think we would live in a better world. I had been an (inactive) member of town for a long time but didn't know the community that well and hadn't kept in great touch with Nate over the intervening decade. Mostly, we attended each other's weddings.

Going to Town Con, meeting people, and sharing about who I was and what I was up to was a good reminder of my need for community and to have projects, even if the projects are just to satisfy my curiosity.

Music 🎧

I might write a whole separate post for this at some point like I did last year. Music has always been a great source of joy and discovery for me. My music listening has been strongly oriented towards electronic music and indie with a sprinkling of jazz and rap for several years now. Similarly, buying music through bandcamp and discogs has satisfied my urges to curate things as well as support the work of artists I like.

I wound up buying over 60 records this year and if I'm completely honest I don't feel I've been able to give them all the attention I want to. As with last year, a number of those acquisitions are albums I've loved a long time that I finally had the opportunity to get on vinyl whether that was because a deal came up or they were reissued. I'll list a few standouts below.

Dubbed Out

I'll write more about all of these in a separate post, but damn do I love good dub techno. Shinichi is the most upbeat of these and I've historically not been the biggest fan of his work but this album did the trick for me. It straddles the line between dub and house in a way that is fun and satisfying.

Ghost Dubs was the unknown find. Well produced, monstrously heavy sub bass, and steady rhythms to get lost in. I'll be returning to this album for sure.

Andy Stott's Faith in Strangers is a total gem that I discovered 10 years ago, then forgot about. Andy Stott's trademark is contrasting really beautiful and ethereal sounds with grimy and distorted ones. Sometimes the severity of that juxtaposition is too much for me which is why I hadn't returned to this album in a while. But the sense of light and shadow in his work and the emotion he coaxes out of his tools is great. I'm really glad this was repressed.

Ambient Techno

I'm a sucker for a certain strain of ambient techno or IDM. The witching hour stuff that gets played once most folks have gone to bed or you're riding home at 3am. I think this is the subgenre of electronic music that is most alluring for me.

HVL is an artist who has released something like 12 hours of music in the last 5 years. He may be my favorite techno artist. I don't think he is my most listened to but I'm always captivated by his work and a huge fan of the sonic landscapes he constructs. I wish he would get both more notice and more physical releases of his work. I've probably enjoyed Nonlinear more than anything he's done since Aura Fossil a few years ago.

CiM and the Quiet Logic repress were surprises for me. I had preordered the Quiet Logic repress last year off of two demo tracks, knowing little about the artists work. I wound up loving this record and it may have made the biggest impression of anything I heard this year. I have poked around the discographics of Jonah Sharp and Mixmaster Morris a bit but not found anything quite this captivating. A perfect fusion of breakbeats and 90s IDM sounds.

CiM on the other hand I stumbled onto through some random instagram post. It was repressed on Delsin which is a label I respect and after hearing a few tracks I was hooked.

Proper Ambient

Two slower albums that really opened up for me this year were Anima and An Offering. I really got into ambient more seriously last year than I ever had before. Both of these albums came out in 2022 and Anima was originally released way back in 2000. Both are still beautiful works that can excel as background music while you hyperfocus on an interesting task or thrive as nearly psychedelic experiences with lights down and quality headphones or speakers driving the experience. Highly recommended.

The Other Stuff

My non-electronic listening was at a minimum this year. Most Rap and R&B came through time at the gym. I wasn't listening to as much cathartic indie as I had the previous year, or I was retreading albums I already had on vinyl like Jay Som's Anak Ko and Japanese Breakfast's Sweet. Nilufer Yanya was one new release that really grabbed me with classic songwriting and hooks. Bindings and Mutations were standout tracks for me.

Aaron and I have always shared a love of Ghostface Killah. I missed a lot of 90s rap the first time around, mostly catching Master P at military school and a bit of Biggie and Pac prior. Outkast's Stankonia and Jay-Z's singles in the 1999-2000 period were when I started finding my way in a bit more. But visiting Aaron in Halifax, we spent some good time working out and listening to Liquid Swords together and I found myself fondly returning to it a lot throughout the year.

Games 🎮

I struggle a lot to enjoy single player gaming these days. Melee with Max is a near weekly occurrence and I still enjoy it a lot. But otherwise, where games brought me tons of joy in my younger days I mostly just fool around in Session or another skate game when I can't muster the energy to do anything else.

The notable exceptions this year were Ghost of Tsushima, Citizen Sleeper, and Star Wars Outlaws. I had bounced of Tsushima a few years back when 10 hours in too many open world objectives opened up at once and I was busy with work at Calendly. But this year, I played it on a 3 week break between leaving Calendly and starting at InvestNext. Having dedicated time to just look after our newly adopted Mila and play video games was really great.

Citizen Sleeper was an unexpected surprise. I don't really remember how I stumbled across it and I confess I've only played about 6 hours worth but I was really captivated by the game world and soundtrack. It's a turn-based cyberpunk RPG and the world building, art, and dialog really drew me in. There's a sequel coming in late January that I'm very excited about.

Outlaws has gotten a lot of flack and it isn't perfect. It launched with bugs and subpar performance as I understand it. But I've been waiting for them to make an open world star wars game where you play a smuggler with a spaceship since I was like ... 12? It might not be everything I dreamed of but to quote a certain infamous smuggler, I can imagine quite a bit. It's worth a chance if that's your thing.

In 2025, I hope Silksong finally releases. The original Hollow Knight remains my favorite game of the last 10 years. It would be wonderful to finally have a sequel to sink my teeth into.

Hacking 💻

The big event in my programming life this year was unquestionably writing Collards and using it to revamp my blog/personal site. I want to write a post announcing it more formally. I'm probably more excited about making further improvements to it and adding more content here in the near term though.

Building collards was a several month process, starting in earnest at the end of July and finishing in late November or early December. It is easily the most well-documented piece of software I've ever written but I also think it's nicely tested and factored code.

In a year where I'm not sure how much I still consider myself a programmer and am acutely aware of how unsatisfied I am with almost all software, I'm still pretty pleased with it. And that's definitely a victory.

I've also enjoyed some emacs fiddling this year, with highlights being configuring email with Mu4e and music handling via EMMS.

Habits ♲

I think the primary good habit this year was starting some new classes at the gym. I've primarily been cycling but branched out into Yoga and TRX classes this year. I've really enjoyed those and am looking forward to continuing in 2025.

Insom had some good reflections around focusing on reading instead of using his phone, writing weekly notes, and practicing music regularly. I hope to try making some similar adjustments in 2025.

Conclusion

Ultimately, a lot of things were hard in 2024. I'm still having to do a lot of work on myself and therapy is a focus for me right now. I'm used to both being completely unreasonably self-critical and also struggling to articulate what it is I want or am trying to do. I can wind up stuck and beating up on myself pretty easily.

I don't really want to set firm goals for next year. Instead, I want to be less afraid. I want to appreciate myself more. I want to recognize all the things I do well. I want to know that even if I'm unclear on my career path, I have built a solid life for myself. I want to allow myself to really be here and enjoy it, instead of worrying about losing it all.

I think that's about it. I hope I spend more time with Norma, more time with friends, more time reading than scrolling, more time writing than lamenting, and make sure to use my turntable and synthesizers some.

Happy New Year. I hope you get everything you're fighting for.

Losing Jurgen
Unless otherwise credited all material CC-BY-SA Brit Butler