In the spirit of my 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 reflections:
Joys
This year was tough, but I still feel profoundly lucky. I spent the year with lovely people, traveling, working on interesting projects, having an impact through my work. What more could I want?
Some highlights of the year:
I proposed to my wonderful girlfriend, and she became my wonderful fiancée.
I wrote a book about death. This was actually some comfort to me considering the sorrows of the year.
I made music with my friend, Peter Sanfilippo. We finished an album and, wouldn't you know it, we released a song a week ago!
I saw the most tremendous thing I’ve ever seen: the April total eclipse!
I became the manager of the 80,000 Hours job board ('product engineer', to be precise). I feel blessed with luck, heady with responsibility, and challenged every day. Big shout-outs are due to Kushal Kansagra, for setting me up to succeed, and whose accomplishments I hope to live up to.
I played much more Melee, thanks to weekly tournaments at Gus’s Pub. I was ranked 5th in Nova Scotia for the first half of the year, and will probably be ranked 6th for the second half. These are some of the friendliest people around, a hidden gem of community.
I read some amazing books. The Peregrine is my book of the year, and The Fifth Head of Cerberus is my novel of the year. Shout-outs are due to my friends who put up with my frequent Peregrine Paragraph Pauses one summer day.
We got a cat. My uncle passed away, leaving behind his beautiful cat. My fiancee and I brought him back to Halifax. He is the sweetest animal in the world. Meet George!
Sorrows
This was a year of death. My aunt and uncle passed away, as did my family's two dogs. I've been thinking about death a lot over the last few years, but this year made it visceral. I wish they all could have lived forever.
It was also an oddly bad year for my health (though, to be fair, I'm usually blessed with oddly good health). I was sick throughout March, and ever since then, I feel like my mind has worked just a little bit worse, especially my already-poor memory.
Resolutions
I accomplished my resolution for 2024!: I finished editing my science fiction novel and am ready to submit it to agents!
At one point, all of the above synced up in a very strange way: I learned about my uncle’s death and his cat’s need for a new owner in the middle of writing a vignette for the novel about the death of a cat. Isn't that odd?
I'm very happy that this continues my streak of achieving my major resolution every year.
As to my minor resolutions:
I read some great books, but I didn’t read as much as I wanted.
I managed to play zero online chess with strangers — I batted away temptation even in the depths of sickness!
Conclusion
Happy New Year to everyone! I hope your year had joys and happy surprises. I hope you had peace and excitement and laughter and awe. I hope you can look back and say this year was good for you.
Conor
💪