New year, old me

A frozen pond I photographed in early January 2024.

I’ve been struggling creatively recently. Maybe it’s the winter doldrums, or the annual existential crisis that usurps my winter holidays. Either way, it’s a new year, and I crave change.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve oscillated between routine and chaos. I’d love to find a middle ground—some stable plane to exist on—but I’m not sure there is one. This may be part of my bipolar disorder (something I’ve never discussed in public). Although I hesitate to pathologize. In any case, inspiration arrives in fits and starts, and always has. And, in some ways, it must.

As 2025 rounds the bend, I’m in the season of chaos. I’m disorganized, lacking discipline, longing for control. As John Keats once wrote, my mind is like a “pack of scattered cards.”¹ I’ve ridden this rollercoaster enough times to know that by mid January, I’ll be okay. Back into “the swing of things.” Except, I’m not sure I want to be—not in the way that leads me full circle come next December.

In the past, when feeling unmoored, I’ve lured myself back to stability with “productivity.” At the start of a new year it’s tempting to yield to the distraction of resolutions, goals, and the chimera of change. New year, new me. The problem is, every time the clock strikes twelve on January 1, I’m still myself.

At the same time, discipline is important for actually making things. It’s impossible to create without discipline, and I’d like to create—or at least to be in the process. But more often than not, I get stuck inside my head. I think capturing the ebb and flow of this “artistic temperament” or whatever you want to call it is the key.

Longinus summed it up well when he wrote that “sublime impulses are exposed to greater dangers when they are left to themselves without the ballast and stability of knowledge; they need the curb as often as the spur.”²

I rode horses as a kid, and—unlike mechanical vehicles—they can be difficult to control. When riding a horse, you can brake or accelerate, just like driving a car. The difference between a horse and a car is that the horse has a mind of its own. That’s the crux of the matter: inspiration requires chaos (the spur), but creation requires discipline (the curb). Routine tends to kill both after a while.

This year, I won’t make resolutions. Actually, I stopped making resolutions long ago—but it’s good to remember why. But I do like the first of the year to review and set intentions.

So here it is: In 2025, I want to live in the chaos, to harness it, to use it as a tool to shape myself and the world I want to live in. To not be quelled by the routine of daily life and the weight of responsibility. To be tempered by discipline. And to (somehow) find space for it all.