01 January 2017

Abundance

Closing the curtain on 2016 at the Waldorf-Astoria.
1 January 2017
New York City


2016 ended with a different kind of unexpectedness for me. While the last three months of the year burned down huge parts of my life – a job that I thought would be a career, a relationship that had weathered months of storms and that I thought would last, friendships I thought were permanent – the last three days of of the year were really quite different.

I will preface this with my answer to a question that someone posed to me a few nights ago when they asked, "what does falling in love feel like to you?" My answer was that it feels like newness, but not novelty; like an abundance of possibility. The best relationships I've had have always made me aware of the infinite number of possibilities that surround us, illustrated by the fact that a romantic relationship – or really, even a meaningful friendship – is nothing short of a miracle.

The last 3 days of 2016 reminded me of those possibilities, but rather than having a particular person arrive at the right time, I was confronted by joy itself.

Without going into the details, I'll simply say that I was surprised by my capacity to still be surprised. When I woke on the morning of December 30th after a long walk through the strangely empty streets of Manhattan the night before, I found that I was not dreading the day; that I was, in fact, quite glad to be alive and quite open to the abundance of possibilities that suddenly unfolded before me.

I decided to simply trust my instincts again, to search for happiness wherever I can find it, to pursue joy and life and love and beauty for no other reason than the fact that this is a terribly short life. It's far too short a life to waste pining for people who don't want you. Far too short a life to do things for people who don't care about you. Far too short a life to compromise your values for companies or systems or employers or people who see you as replaceable. I simply don't have that much time. I lost three months of my life caring about things and people that simply don't care about me: time I won't get back, time I can't reclaim, time I can't get credit for, time that I essentially threw away while neglecting and passing by this abundance of possibilities. I essentially spent three months – three fucking months – dying, rather than living.

All that became gently clear in the last three days of 2016.

I don't have any time for things like that anymore. I'm not angry: I don't have time for that either. I have far too much to do before life itself decides to cancel me and since I have no idea when that's going to happen, I'm going to have to assume that it could be at any time.

Don't expect me to be conversant in the language of the concerns of the day: I know them all too well; I've made my preparations. Don't expect me to shudder at the latest horror or scandal: I'll find my own diversions, thank you. Don't expect me to be shocked by outrage or pettiness in the ongoing overflow of vulgar populism, decayed ideals, and sheer ugliness of the suicidal West, whether large or small.

As I said, I have other things to occupy my time with. Living things. Living relationships. Living places.

Expect the unexpected from me this year as I say yes to living in an abundance of possibilities and beauty and no to dying.


KSA