Resolution of Reimagination

Dear Me,

         Well, 2024 was something else. You did quite a lot, and one of those things was stick to many of your resolutions. That’s impressive! In particular, you managed to find a balance in your civic engagement and accomplished a number of firsts in your photography. You also got your moods to a more manageable state. The trauma is still there, but it’s gotten in the way of daily life a bit less. This proved to be a critical development as the year came to a close. However, not all was perfect. Your moods still took a hit because you let work and career issues get away from you. Likewise, it feels like you took a break from your media commentary and education work at a really bad time. How will these things be addressed in 2025?

         It seems like the answer you are inching toward so far is an unexpected option: outsourcing. Yes, outsourcing. One thing that became crystal clear in 2024 is that you are running out of bandwidth to get ideas out in the open (let alone reasonably executed). There’s also the fact that in a lot of cases your social standing doesn’t allow you to have the influence needed to effect change in areas of critical thinking and community organizing. You can see a rift between different parts of the working class and worry that neither side wants to bridge the rift enough to work against a common oligarchic foe. However, your steady employment history and flexibility make you a target on this front. It’s more prudent for you to ask the questions but encourage others to bring them to more activist sorts. Yes, this is a challenge considering your network is rather small. Still, you have to at least try. Make sure to stay on top of updating "52 Questions"  [ASR] and asking these questions on the appropriate social media platforms.

         Speaking of social media, you will need to make some key decisions on how you use it this year. One the one hand, the leadership behind big platforms are making unsavory moves. On the other hand, you recognize that people will still use them; thus, you have a responsibility to make sure fewer ofthem end up in echo chambers. Being selective in your use and engagement is the goal on this front. While you may still post fact checks and quality journalism examples on Facebook, you should also work on bolstering your Discord server and inviting people to join it. Make sure to reach out to one of the people on your server who’s been there for a while by May to figure out how to upload lots of photos at a time. After all, sharing photos is another big thing you do on Facebook, but most other platforms don’t offer a way to share and store photos at the volume you produce each year. Likewise, since you are a digital windbag, setting up a Substack would also be helpful. You can even put some of your Writing.com musings on Substack to reach a different audience. Such a move can also serve as a way to get at least five journal entries converted to essays and added to your portfolio

         Shifting away from writing and personal time activities for a moment, we have to talk about work. Skill development was a goal for last year that fell by the wayside. Since scaling back social media activities gives you a little time back, you’ll need to reintegrate skill development work into your routine. The good news is there is a free cybersecurity forum you’ll be able to attend in March. While you’ve attended something like this before, you do need a refresher on the skills needed to break into the field. The forum can also provide a framework for you to review your past experience and figure out how to relate that to cybersecurity. Aside from that, you will want to get back in the habit of reading and analyzing cybersecurity news. You managed to find a solid user interface designer and cyber security researcher to follow on LinkedIn. Her posts have been both useful and one of the few highlights of your LinkedIn experience as of late. This work will at least get you back on track when it comes to keeping tabs on developments in the world of cybersecurity.

         With this outsourcing of communication and refocusing on personal career development, there is an open question of what will happen with the two fields where you made progress last year: photography and community involvement. Let’s look at photography first. Last year was unbelievably busy on this front. You wrote the blog entries. You took the classes. You actually made a decent dent in sorting and posting. Along the way, your hypothesis of more growth and flexibility being found in photography was proven correct. However, the current social climate makes your men’s portraiture goal a bit more precarious. While it still has (lots of) value, you will encounter way more headwinds in promotion this year compared to 2024. It’s probably best to continue getting practice and sorting your photos. Hell, you haven’t sorted anything from the classes and shoots you did last year. Let’s at least get two of the portrait shoots organized so you can print them out and start doing some self-critique.

         Then there’s community involvement. I know you’re seeing a fair amount of messaging that emphasize building networks/community. This is a bit of a recurring theme in the sociopolitical circles that you lurk in on multiple platforms. This is a thorny dilemma for you. By scaling back on your community involvement last year, you made some headway on your mental health. Do you want to risk being left out of potentially helpful community circles with repeating that tactic this year? It feels tempting given how many groups have ostracized you over the years. Likewise, the notion of community building poses a quandary for you since you have such a strong reaction to groupthink. Ultimately, it’s worth staying the course you are on right now and try to determine what your future will look like on the pedestrian advisory committee will look like. After all, this year is when the restructuring takes effect. If you get selected again, there is no need for major changes. If you do not get re-selected, it might be worth attending the meetings of other city advisory committees to observe how they work. It can also help you determine what kind of community involvement would work for you long term. This might be worth doing even if you get another term on the committee where you are currently serving. The trick will be figuring out how to schedule that with everything else you’re juggling.

         So why are these the areas of focus and why these goals in particular? Hopefully this work will help clear some space in your head. You see so much in terms of messaging and concepts that merit lots of (re)thinking. While you’ve been able to metaphorically grab a lot of them and give them scrutiny, it’s too much for you to do by yourself. You’re also starting to come to terms with the fact that you’re just not that influential. It sucks, but you need to be realistic about this. It’s time to recruit others to share your insights. Believe it or not, everything discussed up till this point helps with that recruitment. Rethinking your social media and community involvement buy you time. Getting 52 Questions up and running introduces your insights and ideas to a wider audience (even if the initial response has been a letdown in some ways). Of course, you can set up all these plans and execute them, but you have to keep in mind that the desired result is probably the most challenging and lofty goal you’ve set for yourself in a long time.

         2025 is going to be a different challenge compared to what you have been dealing with over the last few years. This time, it’s not just about you and your emotional wounds. They’re still around, but they’ve scabbed over enough for you to shift your focus for the year. Yes, there’s a good chance you’ll get some new wounds. Risk is the name of the game this year whether you like it or not. Time to take on a bit more of it. It’s what you need to do if you want better, more nuanced thinking to have a chance.

Sincerely,
Me

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