A Look Back at 2023

The Year of Rediscovery & Faith

After hitting my head on a low ceiling in Japan, I was nervous. My mind quickly raced to many possibilities. The unsettled feeling in my stomach reminded me of my previous concussion, and the world seemed shifted in some small, imperceptible way. Maybe I was still sleep-deprived and jet-lagged, maybe I was dehydrated, maybe I was motion-sick from the too-long shuttle ride from our hotel, which we’d mistakenly booked an hour outside of Osaka. Bob Saget had died recently from a brain bleed after a bump to the head. How did he feel after hitting his head? Did he just shake it off, thinking that it was a day like any other? Or did he feel exactly like this? Was I on the verge of death itself?

My brother and I finished our coffees at the basement cafe with the low ceiling and walked around the area for a bit. I leaned against a wall as my brother decided that he needed his second coffee in an hour. Why did my legs feel weird, too?

And then, a change — a reddish hue to the world, growing to coat everything. Everything looked like blood and suddenly everything was dark. Dozens of memories passed through my mind. Was my life flashing before my eyes? Was this what the end felt like? Limbs acted on instinct, arms moving just enough to soften the blow and protect my head as I fell in the street.

The next moment: voices and concerned faces of strangers that helped me up. I was sitting on a chair with a cup of water in my hand. I’d been mistaken. It hadn’t been the end. A taxi ride to a local hospital later, and the CT scan at the hospital confirmed that my brain wasn’t bleeding and that my anxiety probably overwhelmed me until my nervous system decided to clock out. 

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It’s the last week of the year. I can’t help but follow the impulse to reflect on the last 365 days and try to wrap it up into a neat little package. What I do remember: being afraid of my own death, starting with my experience with the concussion in Japan that ended up being mild. This was a year that was defined by an anxious obsession with my mortality that morphed into something like acceptance of it. I described my initial struggle with these feelings and how it impacted my relationship with my sense of self in my last reflecting pool essay: 

I couldn’t stop thinking about my mortality. I found myself overwhelmed with tears and wondered if it had to do with carbs or wine or everything. I spent a morning sobbing to every video on my Instagram Reels and then had one of the best days all year. All of human experience existed in every day, but I only felt it sometimes.

[...]

I stare into the mirror and wonder what Narcissus saw. Sometimes I see something worth admiring, and sometimes I see something unrecognizable. Did he only ever see a single version of himself, or was he frozen in perpetuity until he was turned into a flower? Could I ever see the same thing reflected back? Was I the same person six months ago? How come it’s easier to smile at strangers and babies? How could I make a joke to a stranger so easily when I couldn’t even imagine doing that sort of thing? Was that the real me or is this the real me or are they both as real as the shifting rivers? 

After confronting my mortality so heavily and deeply, I’ve come out the other side fully convinced of the breadth of capability of my life. This year, I remembered that I am malleable and can mold myself towards a life more worth living, one that I would be satisfied with leaving one day. Such a thing was inconceivable before, when I let limiting beliefs and fear dictate what my imagination looked like. I never really knew what I wanted before.

My values have shifted — after a lifetime of demonizing desire and ambition, I’ve changed my mind. I spent a lot of my youth reading about giving up all desire, how it’s the source of all suffering, and the religious path towards enlightenment through renunciation. I was raised among these religious ideals while feeling uncomfortable with the impossibility of them all. Was the ideal form of living really defined by rejecting all that made us human? Was the path to some divine love equivalent to pushing away human nature in major ways?

I don’t know, but ignoring desire and feeling feels like an inauthentic way of living. The more that I learn about the greatest writers and artists, the more I want to live more like them — trying to self-actualize through the conversion of the self into something beyond human form. These were flawed people, filled with desire and sin and stupidity and love, but even as they left their bodies their work could caress the hearts of people, divert souls from one direction to another. They created through their messy acts of living, in many forms.

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2023 is the year that I rediscovered my love of the arts, as I do every year. I saw the greatest movies I’ve ever seen in my life, I read the best books I’ve ever read in my life, and I’ve written the best work I’ve ever done in my life. I lived more than I had in years: visiting four other countries, meeting tons of new people, dancing to new music, seeing new museums, finding all sorts of opportunities to grow my world.

And, I’ve re-framed the way I think about life itself: everything is just material for me to create art from. Every experience, every moment spent sobbing about someone who doesn’t deserve it, every golden hour photo of the sky, every stressful trip to the doctor and amazing run, every emptied-out ice cream pint or half-eaten cookie, every failing and too-long bubble bath. 

Life is harder to judge harshly when it’s just a part of the artistic process. A nightmarish situation could prove to make a beautiful poem that lightens the heart of a hollow-eyed stranger. A trip to the grocery store could lead to the fuel that leads to the next great work. How can I know what a rainstorm will bring? It could ruin plans and throw me into despair, or let flowers bloom, in fields real and imagined. 

It’s a matter of faith, I suppose — faith that the words will continue to come to me even when the days darken, that there’s meaning to be extracted from whatever happens, that the bad won’t overwhelm everything else, that I’ll be okay even when I stumble or spend all day rotting in bed or hurt people I love in small ways or tell the self-checkout that those bananas weren’t organic. Faith that there will be art at the end, and that it will mean something to somebody.

Faith’s been paying off so far. I still have faults and still want to get better, but I don’t feel like they are my undoing. I don’t eat that healthy, I’m a little more curt than I should be, and I’ve spent so much time over the last few months on my phone, but I’ve still written things I love, my heart still beats relentlessly, people still love me (I think).

Months ago, I broke my own heart after a couple of dates and walked to the beach and wrote an essay I was really proud of. In September, I talked to a stranger and I wondered who I was. In October, I almost abandoned my art entirely and discovered new purpose. Today, I went to Costco with my parents and saw one of the most brilliant sunsets I’ve ever witnessed. Massive hands fingerpainted rouge across the sky, gestured strokes back and forth that faded into the deep gray clouds. 

I know not what tomorrow holds or the next year holds, but I stand tall facing forwards, eager for the inspiration it holds. God, let me have another year like this. 

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We must do what we can to push back against the genocide in Gaza. Consider calling your US representatives to support de-escalation and a ceasefire, donating to Care for Gaza, a grassroots organization delivering food to Palestinians, or buying e-SIMs to keep folks connected to their families.

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💧 Drops of the Week 💧

• PLAYLIST - dec 23 - some random projects I dug into plus a survey of hip-hop from this year

• POEM - “Winter Solstice” by Gary Young - Birds travel toward the horizon / at a distance which makes them / indistinguishable. We only know / that they seem to be leaving the earth.

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