Happy New Year!

Photo by Nick West on Unsplash

Happy New Year! 2018 was...quite the year. I don't really know how to even describe it. A lot of good stuff happened. A lot of very bad stuff happened. I feel like quite a few of the people I know, myself included, spent this year very tired. Or worried. Or feeling stuck. Or sick. I think a lot of us clustered together because we've learned that things can indeed be very bad, and it's only with each other that we can try to push our way through. Some had to push MUCH harder than others. In addition to personal situations, the world also spent most of this year feeling like it was combusting. Politics are insane and disheartening. Our planet is basically at the breaking point - scientists now say we've got 10 years to fix things, not the 20 or 30 we thought we had before. I've had a really hard time being positive about things. People who've had the misfortune of talking to me longer than 20 minutes this year know firsthand how quickly I'll spiral straight down into panicked ranting about the environment. Poor Brian's practically at saint status by this point for how much and how long he's listened to me go on and on and on and on and on (keep in mind that we agree on all these points - I still rant at him FOREVER).

The problem with my charming behavior (well; one of the problems) is that all of this doesn't actually do anything. Me losing my mind to people who are also losing their minds - or even to the people who somehow want to say there are no problems, which is bizarre and irresponsible and see, I'm ranting again - doesn't change a thing. It just makes me anxious and sad, and it makes the people around me anxious and probably mad (that I keep going on about it), and while not being informed and aware and concerned isn't an option, I think there needs to be a redirection.

So, in 2019, I'm going to try and be more positive. I know, kind of weird. And I also know myself and in like two days I'll be all "Okay, I'm positive. I'M POSITIVE WE'RE ALL DOOMED," but that's not what I mean (and please point this out to me in two days). When the world inevitably descends into utter chaos, I'm not going to look back fondly on spending whole years panicking ineffectively, or at time I could have spent making things to make others - and myself - amused or a little distracted. I won't be thinking "Gosh, if only I'd spent more time ranting to Petra while she's stuck in a car with me about whales eating plastic" (true story - sorry, Petra). Instead, I know I'm going to be happier about the conversations we had concerning a certain podcast that is slowly but surely taking shape. I'm going to be happier about the time spent making Academicasaurus with friends than I will be about the time I spent pissed off at the government, and the time I spent whining about everything else instead of making, say, a Hippo book (or any of the other 80 billion projects I've got in my brain) doesn't help anything at all. It just makes me annoying.

I'm not advocating ignoring the world. I read some article about "How to be a Better You in 2019," and in addition to saying something about people switching out coffee for cookies (what?) and rubbing aloe on your face or something (thanks for the plant, Ramona and Noah), there was also this glowing report about a guy who read zero news the entire year. I think that's irresponsible and damaging. However, I also think that stuff has to be directed into a proper place. Me posting on Facebook about things like this, though I do it sometimes, doesn't really do anything because most of the people I know feel pretty similarly to me, and the people who don't aren't evil overlords who I'm shaming into somehow changing a system much larger than they are. So in 2019, I'm going to go be a grown up and volunteer. I'm going to find groups and organizations that I think are doing something good, and I'm going to weasel my way in and hope they don't find out that I don't know what I'm doing until it's too late. I don't care how small it is, or how little impact I have; I just know I have to do something somewhere.

And then, I shall make myself sit down (that's not hard - actually, I need to make myself get up and exercise, but that's another story) and MAKE THINGS. Things for me, things for others, things that make people smile, things that make people go "uhhh." I shall keep dragging people into my things, and I will use my things to meet MORE people who also make things and then we shall have things to discuss and be happy over.

Barf. I mean - yay! 2019! Positivity!

Now watch the entire planet explode in 5....4.....3........