2024 year in review
A quick(ish) summary of some things from this year.
By the numbers
Summary:
- did well with Practice (inner and outer)
- did okay with Health
- did great with writing.
Some detail:
- Meditated in the morning 6/7 days and in the evening 3/7 days, on average for the year.
- Kept to healthy habits around eating, drinking, and walking 4/7 days, on average for the year.
- Went on two holidays: Melbourne in October; Nelson in April.
- Wrote a lot here. Writing is a big way I process things.
- About 10 things on Zen, gathering thoughts and themes and ideas.
- About 30 notes on Zen things I read or watched.
- About 50 of mixed sizes about all kinds of topics, mostly mindfulness and philosophy.
- About 30 notes from books, videos, and articles.
- About 10 things on Buddhism specifically.
- A handful starting to explore IFS (Internal Family Systems).
- Ran two solo sessions and one joint session for One Mindful Breath.
- Continued doing janitor duties.
By the themes
Summary:
- did not go so well with “rest” as a theme
- did great with Zen and Practice and keeping it fresh and updated
- doing okay with work
- pervading feeling of restlessness
- not dealing well with Roxy’s old age
- doing well with continuing to improve my understanding of my own weird patterns and habits.
Some detail:
- Started off strong on the “Rest” theme, but… tailed off after a few months. Although I kept up with many of my MCSWARM things, it felt like the impact, the amount of battery recharged, dropped off as the year went on.
- Notable: did no art stuff from June onwards.
- Practice in general, but the Zen stuff in particular, helped with some Big Emotions about various things throughout the year.
- Really got a lot from spending a whole year with Zen as a main focus.
- The path is the goal.
- In particular, self-fulfilling activity, flow states.
- Making my daily practice more like shikantaza, just sitting.
- Nondual and both-ness and emptiness. The union of Absolute and Relative, of emptiness and form.
- Fuzzing up the dividing line between practice and everyday life. Everything is our main practice.
- Including Rōhatsu, a week-ish of more intensive (meditation) sitting.
- Did lots of other fiddling on the site, categorising, tidying up for readability.
- Broke out My Applied Philosophy to its own page.
- Carried on fiddling with my take on Internal Family Systems.
- In April 2024 started at Intopia as a Digital Accessibility Consultant. I was not a good fit for that team at MSD. My approach and attitude was almost opposite to some key members.
- Regularly saw a handful of good friends, made a few new friends.
- Roxy the dog turned 14 in June. Her health and condition has been pretty up and down all year. In particular, her walking is noticably more wobbly and creaky, and she’s eating and sleeping less.
- Noticing more the overlap with my patterns and behaviours and flavours of neurodivergence, but still resisting diagnosis.
By my patterns
- Poker (inquisitive, analytic)
- Remixer
- Pragmatic (useful, helpful, fruitful, etc)
- Serious but/and funny
- Kind, Supportive, Forgiving to others a bit, to myself not much
How can I channel the energy from these?
Books
I read quite a lot of books this year. About 8 books a month (‽). Stats: about 2/5 were fiction, about 2/5 were philosophy.
Here are some of my top reads from the year.
Fiction
- The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Carter, Angela.
- Liars by Manguso, Sarah. Oof. Manguso writes so well and precisely and painfully.
- Menewood by Griffith, Nicola. I loved Hild and this was equally good in a different way.
I also read all of Iain M. Banks Culture novels. So good! And a few that were new to me.
Nonfiction
- Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet by Hanh, Thich Nhat. Such clear, insightful, thinking, as in all his books.
- No Bad Parts by Schwartz, Richard C. I’m not all-in on IFS, but “parts” is useful way of bundling bits together.
- Painting the Sidewalk with Water by Tollifson, Joan. A real find for me. Her books and Substack are so good, insightful, helpful.
See also
Looking ahead
Things that went well that I’d like to keep going:
- Practice
- writing
- reflection.
Things that didn’t go so well last year (according to my review of the year) that I might like to focus on:
- health
- rest / restlessness
- Roxy’s old age (she’s doing okay, I’m doing okay looking after her. It’s the stress / pressure I’m putting on myself).
See also: The ends of various seesaws and LSD. Framed and phrased as a stance, a vector, a direction.
- From moving to still, Slower
- From away to toward, Closer
- From distraction to attention, Braver
- From avoid to allow, Looser
HIP! Health, Interests, Practice.
Nonduality angle? Accept who you are, what you’re like. At least notice it, ideally pause a little.
Figure out how I can / if I want to channel the energy from some of my patterns:
- Poker (inquisitive, analytic)
- Remixer
- Pragmatic (useful, helpful, fruitful, etc)
- Serious but/and funny
And figure out how I can turn inwards some things I’m okay at doing outwards
- Kindness
- Support
- Forgivness
Added 2024-12-18, last updated 2024-12-27.