Reflections 2022

Time is an interesting concept that people always grapple with. Unlike the space we’re inhabiting, that we can change at our will, time inexorably moves forward. To our knowledge, there is no way of reversing it (at least outside of the theoretical realm). In fact, the late Stephen Hawking once devised a very simple experiment, throwing a birthday party for time travelers – and only advertising it after it happened. Nobody showed up.

The reason I’m bringing up time is because of the approaching new year, 2023 and with it, the hopes and dreams of new beginnings. There was a period of time in my life where I was somewhat even resentful towards this idea of reflecting on our lives when we’re about to change the calendar year. To me, it’s always important to stay in touch with ourselves and look inwards. Even as little as a few minutes each day, so that we don’t get just dragged along the timeline.

So, is it good that we’re marking new years and people coming up with new years resolutions (that they will overwhelmingly not follow)? Or is this just a convenient excuse to say that we did in fact think about change, but then move on?

Personally, I settled on doing both – daily journaling and reflections, as well as periodically taking a look at a more comprehensive and longer time frame. In particular, when it comes to this blog:

• January – I’ve written about sequels; funnily enough, this year had some quite long awaited ones (or unexpected). Avatar: The Way of Water came out 13 years after the original one and miraculously, Ron Gilbert made a new Return to Monkey Island, 31 years after he last worked on one! I haven’t watched the former or finished playing the second yet – so I don’t know if they suck.
• February – Five year anniversary of being married to the love of my life and sharing some tips on how I was able to approach and knew so very quickly me and Claire were a phenomenal fit.
• March – It is not often that a Video Game is so monumental it puts nearly all others to shame (even Vox included it for their 2022 recap in 7 mins). I used Elden Ring as an excuse to talk about the unique storytelling that can happen in video games. PRAISE THE DOG.
• April – I changed the theme for my website and did some cleanup as well, adding reviews and gearing up to write more.
• May – Everybody fails. That is how we learn and in May, I wrote a blog post with my experiences on learning from failure. Also 100% completed Elden Ring, following the doctrine of GIT GUD.
• June – Using the overturning of abortion rights in the U.S. as a catalyst, I wrote about empathy and how it’s increasingly difficult to have it when we’re not personally affected.
• July – A blog post inspired by reading Seneca (the Roman philosopher) and one of the phrases I abhor – “kids these days”. 
• August – In lieu of the student loan forgiveness (which may actually never come to be due to legal challenges), I wrote about the importance of providing free (or at least affordable) education for the wellbeing of everyone.
• September – Not very much in terms of content, just excited about starting the Data Science bootcamp with the Nashville Software School!
• October – My first actual post about my experience in the bootcamp, comparing it to the more classical education of my prior years.
• November – Briefly talked about programming languages, since over the past three months or so, I’ve been writing more in python and R than I have in English!

That is about it for this year!