nye2024

From the End of the Beginning of this year, last year, most years, every year. Ah, a three-year odyssey, where time is less of a straight line and more of a spiral. If anything, these past few years have been a masterclass in the ironically absurd. Between the incompetence of systems that promise salvation (insurance, healthcare, politics, religion) and the existential dreariness of a body that stubbornly clings to life despite all odds, the journey feels less like progress and more like a forced march toward an inevitable, unremarkable end. One cannot help but wonder—has anything truly changed, or are we simply treading water in the flood of our own making? Our current way of life, metaphorical and literal, serves as a backdrop to this existential performative dance. The wreckage left in its wake mirrors not just the physical destruction but the internal chaos of living in an age where security is fleeting, satisfaction a myth, and self-importance via social media dominates. The grand dream of perfection—whether in homes, bodies, relationships, or ideologies—is swiftly eroding, leaving behind the stench of human vulnerability. Yet, in the face of this, there's a curious resignation. We become more connected than ever before while we are more disconnected than ever before. Defies logic, but here we are. The repairs are slow, the bills pile up, but at least there's a sense of grim humor in the absurdity of it all. One adapts, kicks rocks barefoot, to the constant erosion, which, in its own right, becomes a form of rebellion against the very systems that demand our submission.

The steady march of time continues, dragging more medical frustrations, loss, and the weary realization that life is as much about enduring as it is about achieving anything meaningful. Health problems, relationships, and even political ideologies become so much noise against the backdrop of the real question: What’s the Point? So, as the years accumulate, what is left to do but press forward, not in hope or optimism, but because time, relentless in its ticking, doesn’t really offer an alternative. The absurdity, after all, is the only thing that’s truly constant. Is your life a carefully constructed narrative, or are you simply improvising a tragic farce with occasional comedic beats? A theater of existence through a lens. From hurricanes that rip apart our homes and finances to the inevitable decay of the human body. I am always pondering the inherent futility of attempting to control the uncontrollable. Existential dilemmas emerge from mundane struggles: rebuilding without the tools or even a blueprint for the tools becomes a symbol of a compromised life in a dream where inflation ensures the rich get richer and the rest get a crash course in survival. Oh, that isn’t a dream. That’s been a reality for most of us. There’s a sharp turn into the familiar friend of entropy. Here lies the ironic absurdity of caregiving: futile efforts to prolong a life that ultimately evaporates into oblivion. Yet, I welcome musings of AI, conceptual horror, and the darkly comedic nature of politics, whether life has meaning, but whether meaning itself is the cruelest joke of all. They say “live and learn,” but if one hasn’t learned, did they ever live? Whenever I heard a “saying,” and it starts with “they say.” Who the hell are “they?” It makes me want to hunt down, “they,” slap them in the head.

Welcome in social media, the internet’s great experiment in collective brain rot. What begins as communication to gain different perspectives turns into tribalism in online spaces evolving into unhealthy internet subcultures, where trolls and influencers battle for supremacy in a digital coliseum of irrelevance. Internet idealism now reduced to a sandbox for the trivial and the vindictive. Does it even matter whether a troll, a cultist or elitist wins the argument if the platform itself is a dumpster fire of collective word vomit from narcissists? Granted elitists wouldn’t be on social media all that much. They are too busy ‘eliting’ themselves to more monies. When you have loads of cash, does one even want or need social media? Woke or unwoke, left or right, preaching the Lord’s name or not; these labels serve merely as masks for the fear that underpins human existence: the terror of being forgotten in a universe that never cared in the first place. The message—a searing reminder that the more we “connect,” the more we expose the gaping void within ourselves while disconnecting from the people that are actually in our reality. We try to venture out. One can only wave their hands so much to get someone else’s attention. If they choose to ignore that and you know deep down you were forward with that concept of communication. It isn’t on you to care. You attempted, they played dumb. Why would you accept that from any situation or person? The floodwaters of nature are matched only by the flood of systemic incompetence, with insurance premiums rising as fast as the costs of rebuilding. The house, much like life itself, becomes a metaphor for the disillusionment we all feel: repairs are never as simple as they seem, and some losses—like the pool cage and later the entire pool lanai—are just too damn expensive to replace. Yet, here we are and instead of descending into despair, we just realize life goes on, even when the dream moves slowly towards a singularity. You can’t save everything, but you can at least salvage the absurdity of it all, laugh and curse the fake God in the sky.

These reflections are framed not by sorrow, but by existential absurdism: does it matter? Does the universe even care a blip within a blip within a blip within an ocean, within a glass, on a planet that was swallowed by a giant space whale even care? In a world where the system is rigged and the body betrays you, the only thing left to do is keep moving forward—until the final, inevitable reset. Whether sudden or prolonged, life and the death of that life is just the final joke in a single frame of reference full of bad punchlines.

With that said 2025 is going to be a little different, at least in how I attack my writings. I have been so busy with some other things that I haven’t been able as much to work on my own stuff. I am slowly but actively taking all my blogs and converting them to audio/video presentations. They are not podcasts. I am just taking the written blogs or essays using an AI voiceover to read it with some sort of video attached to it. I like the audio spectrum. It’s like a "visualizer" for audio that allows you to see a visual for the sound, making it a neat little creative tool. I will be producing a real music video for the band I work with. Going low tech with that as well. Going for a 90s grunge or metal vibe of the time. I have a lot of audiobooks to get through this year. Many that deal with black hole fiction and stories revolving around time dilation. I want to put out a few short-stories this year as well and work on something bigger. As of right now I do not have a real writing schedule like I usually work from, but my next essay will be on labels. What they are and why they are important. We have had labels longer than sugar. I will probably write a lot of reviews on these science fiction books. The more of these more existential fictions the more it will draw me into thinking about reality and how I want to formulate my own stories. I got some solid ideas that I feel like I want to talk about. I think short-stories with expansion in mind is the best way for my brain to operate when writing. I will also continue to doing tech-style essays on some of the odd computer stuff I tend to tackle. So yeah, 2025 is gearing up. I am glad I am able to think about this in a healthy place in my brain and not have too many delusions of grandeur.

As I look ahead to 2025, the creative landscape feels like a vast, uncharted universe—full of potential, ready for exploration. Whether it’s blending audio-visual projects, diving into the abstract depths of existential fiction, or tackling the nuanced power of labels, the journey is ongoing. But, like a supernova, I’m aware that growth and creation are processes of expansion and contraction, marked by moments of clarity amidst chaos. It’s a balance between the infinite and the finite—an ever-evolving dance of ideas and reality. Here’s to the art of becoming.

Nihil sub sole novum
Latin for (Nothing new under the sun)
by David-Angelo Mineo
12/31/2024
1,467 Words