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A new year is upon us, and during these days I find myself reflecting on the year that has passed as well as the year to come.
I went through a lot of personal growth in 2022. Much of that growth was scary or painful, but it was necessary. I feel like I'm a very different person than I was at the start of last year, and that change has been for the better. My relationships, for all the turbulence they endured, are now stronger than ever--I value the companionship of my wife and the support of my friends in a very different way than I did twelve months ago.
As part of that growth, I made a concerted effort to follow more of my passions and complete more projects in 2022. I reached a eight-year low in my weight at the end of May, and while I've since regained several pounds, I know reaching that weight again is not impossible. I continued to pursue aviation, going to local airports a few times every month, attending air shows, and eventually getting a job in the industry. I picked up pinball and returned to reading and Rubik's Cubes, even achieving a personal best time on my favorite puzzle.
Throughout 2022, Gemini has remained one of my core passions. I've enjoyed watching the community grow and diversify: with the tide of new capsules has come a plethora of exciting games and useful services. I was able to contribute with interactive puzzles and a todo.txt interface, but the depth of coding skill ans creativity I see on other capsules always amazes me. I've begun to dip my toes back into Gopher as well, but there's more to come on that topic.
Make no mistake: on the whole, 2022 was a rough year for me. But I'm glad that I went through it, and I hope to continue to mature and become the best person I can be.
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The advent of 2023 has already seen a few notable changes for me. I switched to a new (likely interim) smartphone on 29 December after having a Galaxy Note 8 for over half a decade. My leather cross-body bag, eight years my EDC companion, finally reached the end of its usable life--and its replacement arrived by post on New Year's Eve. Though these are small changes in the macroscopic sense, they affect my daily routines and shape how I interact with the world.
Such updates to my daily drivers help instill a renewed sense of determination in me. I want to reverse my recent weight-gain trend, and I aim to dip below 200 pounds by mid-year. To that end, I want to use my new phone to better remind me to exercise and perhaps guide me through exercises as well. I bought a pocket planner for myself, and I want to use it to improve my organization, which is often lacking. I also now have a large backlog of books to read, and I want to manage my time better in 2023.
I have no plans on slowing down in Geminispace either. I have a few math topics I want to write about, as well as more interactive twisty puzzles and more creative writing. I hope to see continued adoption of the Gemini protocol, and with it a host of open, privacy-respecting services that add value to the community and evolve it into a more robust supplement to Gopher and the mainline Internet.
I try not to lay out too many specific New Year's resolutions, as I tend to psych myself up about them, put a lot of mental pressure on myself to achieve them, then cave under that self-created pressure. Therefore, I've limited myself to only weight loss as a quantifiable goal. The rest I'll evaluate as I do it.
Overall, I'm extremely excited for 2023. Happy new year, Gemini!
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[Last updated: 2024-10-06]