Loose Ends 2023

Time to wrap up 2023 by mentioning some things I wanted to blog about but never did.  First of all, I swore off politics this year knowing full well I would be inundated with political stories in the 2024 election year.  I had only one or two political conversations with anyone all year.  I told everybody that I would not discuss about anything political.  I was on a political vacation.  

Not discussing politics has a magical effect on your life.  Politics stays out of your life (mostly).  You waste no energy on it.    It was wonderful.  But I could not completely ignore the multiple crises that were in the news from Trump's many felony charges to Kevin McCarthy being the first Speaker of the House to be ousted from that office to the seemingly never-ending threat of a government shutdown due to the debt ceiling.

I chose not to blog about any of that.  The closest I came were a couple of political mentions in my “Notes with Claude” series and my post about Oliver Anthony's viral song “Rich Men North of Richmond.”  I'll probably have more to say about that in the new year.  I will say this, however.  The way the Democrats and the Left are playing their hand is Trump's best chance to be reelected in 2024.  The thug should have been ignored after his term, not pursued.  The lawyers should have left him alone, criminal or not.  

My god, now look.  Y'all got common people riled up about the persecution of a former president.  The wellspring of conservative anger in this country is just itching to give the finger to all rabid anti-Trumpers and especially to “the established system of government.”  You prosecute a just cause at the expense of empowering your enemy.  Which is more valuable?  Without any persecution or serious comment, Trump's speeches become impotent to the public at large.  Sour grapes.  It could have been so much easier.  Now, I fear, y'all are going to get him reelected.  It's just dumb on so many levels.

Here's an inspiring quote that came to me early on in the year.  I have not found it anywhere so I suppose I “invented” it:  “Fill your life with things that never get old and it will keep your brain younger.”  Of course, I don't know if that's true or not.  But it makes for a good life-habit anyway.  One that I realize I have established in my own life.  Endless curiosity and learning are immensely helpful to well-being.

Though I blogged about much of my reading this year, I read plenty of books that I didn't blog about.  Among them were two books on subjects that fascinate me.  Losing Ourselves is a book about the fact that humans don't actually have a “self”.  I completely agree with this premise as I have blogged about before, but this book disappointed me.  Although I agreed with it, I thought its approach was too technical and got bogged down in subjects that were of little interest to me.  

Another disappointing read was Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life.  That certainly sounds like a perfect book on the subject of human wonder.  I happen to believe that having a healthy sense of wonder is critical to human flourishing and well-being.  So does this author but, although there were interesting passages, the book as a whole was much ado about nothing I really cared about.  I'm still searching for a book on wonder that truly speaks to my perspective on the topic.

There was plenty of art in my life this year even though Jennifer and I had to cancel our museum trip to NYC due to family circumstances.  Of course, the year started with Caravaggio but I was gifted another terrific book on John Singer Sargent's masterworks.  I also watched an excellent documentary about him on Youtube.  Later in the year, I discovered the wonderful murals painted by Thomas Hart Benton and bought a 40-year old booklet pertaining to them.  I plan to continue to learn more about each of these great painters (among many others on my list) in the future.  Painting is one of those things that never grows old with me.

I learned more about my “biological” age versus my “chronological” age.  Plugging in some numbers from my annual physical blood work at this website I happily discovered that my body is actually 12 years younger than my age.  Decades of diet, supplements, exercise and other self-cultivation practices is apparently paying off.  I certainly don't feel my age – well, now and then I do. My left knee is giving more trouble than it used to, for example.  But mostly  I don't feel like I'm over sixty.

Jennifer turned me on to a new (well, from 2018) song by a group I'd never heard of before.  Mt. Joy performing “Dirty Love” kept popping up in my head off and on all year.  I found it super sexy and fun to listen to.  Just a great tune performed with simple passion.  I detect the odd fusion of REM with Coldplay here.  There is an impressive, more dynamic live version of the tune here.  In some ways it is even better.

A lot of notable deaths occurred this year.  My favorite female classical composer passed, Kaija Saariaho.  I got her last recorded CD (as far as I know) in 2021.  I will miss looking out for new releases from her and resolve to review her works in 2024.  A far older artist, in terms of my familiarity with them, Randy Meisner, former Eagle bassist who sang “Take It to the Limit,” died.  I fell in love for the first time while slow dancing with a girl in high school to that song.  I can still remember the magic of that moment, Meisner's vocals and real eye contact.

Some magical moments from my youth with Jimmy Buffet still resonate as well.  He was a huge favorite of mine in my early college days before my musical tastes began to broaden.   He was a fun performer to party to.  A let's all get drunk and sing along kinda artist.  Now, that distinctive laid back happy beach rock is gone.  My favorite living author, Milan Kundera, who wrote The Unbearable Lightness of Being, also died.  I don't think I have a favorite living author at the moment.  Interestingly enough Cormac McCarthy also died only a few weeks before I discovered his incredible novel, Blood Meridian.  I will be reading more of him in the future, hopefully next year.  Both of those books stand out in my mind as being ones I read and then immediately reread.  Interesting that they were originally published a year a part.  I have followed Kundera's writings ever since, of course.  I still have plenty of McCarthy to get acquainted with.  Reading great literature is another aspect of my life that never grows old.

I watched a lot of movies this year that I didn't blog about, though Oppenheimer was the only one I saw in a theater.  White Noise was a fun adaptation of Don DeLillo's classic modern work of fiction (also published around the time of the Kundera and McCarthy novels).  But it was nothing special as a film.  A few funny scenes and an absurd societal situation.  Annihilation was a film I caught on Netflix.  I always enjoy Natalie Portman's work and liked the film, though, again, it was nothing special.  I give both these efforts a 6.

More recently, Jennifer and I finally got around to watching Everything, Everywhere, All At Once which was all the rage about this time last year.  It was an interesting mishmash of all kinds of things from classic movie tropes to commentary about the excesses of our times.  The performances, directing, and writing were superb BUT the last quarter of the movie disintegrates into utter absurdist nihilism.  That isn't a bad thing in and of itself.  I am partly nihilistic myself.  But when you create a story as fantastic as this one and ask me to invest a lot of attention into keeping up with what the hell is even happening, I expect my effort to be rewarded.  Instead, the whole thing falls apart without any attempt at resolution or explanation.  It ends with the line “nothing matters.”  That could have been profound but, instead, it fell flat with my wife and I.  This movie doesn't matter either.  I'd give it a 7, at best.  Last year's hype and the awards were not justified, in my opinion, though I will keep my eye on The Daniels.

Even more recently, I watched Bradley Cooper's take on the life of Leonard Bernstein.  Maestro was another entertaining film that taught me some intimate things I did not know about the famous conductor/composer.  For me, the highlight comes when Cooper, who studied conducting for this specific piece, conducts the final minutes of Mahler's incredible Symphony No. 2, the “Resurrection.”  It is an inspiring moment that apparently captures Bernstein's joyful, highly animated style pretty well according to comments I've seen by professional conductors.  Be that as it may, the film really focuses on Bernstein's fear of being alone and zest for being with people and physical love to the point of him being bisexual, with a preference for young guys.  There's nothing wrong with that but the effort overall did not dazzle me.  It's another 6.

2023 was another one of those years that was among the hottest on record.  More incredibly, perhaps, is the fact that the world's various oceans recorded their highest temperatures ever.  The water in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Miami was near 100 degrees for much of the summer.  Ridiculous.  On the other hand, this heat caused no major disasters as most hurricanes stayed out in the Atlantic and, though they reached categories 4 and 5, were nothing more than “fish storms.”  

We are fortunate but also unfortunate in a way.  It is another instance of the effects of global warming not causing any definitive harm to humanity.  Which only gives the deniers more fodder to claim that this is all much ado about nothing.  Regrettably, human beings are rarely proactive about disastrous situations.  It will take much human suffering in the years ahead before governments and corporations will stop the “greenwashing” of global warming and take the necessary steps to mitigate it.  By then it will be too late, of course.  I think it is likely already too late for much of the flora and fauna of our natural world.

The most interesting fact I came across this year:  You and I will travel about 1 trillion miles during our lifetimes. We don't take these things into account because we do not intimately experience what is actually happening to our planet in space.  But we should.  Because it is really happening to us.  This perspective is part of my sense of expansive omni-directionalism.

Resolutions for 2024 include improving my grip strength, incorporating more Chia seeds into my diet, reading more Faulkner and expanding my search for which novel I would consider as for the No. 5 position as the greatest ever written following, in order, In Search of Lost Time, The Brothers Karamazov, The Lord of the Rings, and War and Peace.  I discovered the music of African-American female composer, Florence Price in 2024, though I might have actually known of her at the end of last year.  I will try to listen to as many of her works as possible in the new year, keeping in mind that I want to review my Saariaho collection at some point too.  

I also resolve to try sprinting instead for just running 3 miles.  I've read a few articles about how running fast for short distances several times in a session can be more beneficial than running steadily over long distances for a half hour.  I've always had a “marathon mentality.”  Maybe I'm wrong.