What a year that 2018, eh? After spending a couple of days recouperating with good friends, and much time huddled in my anxiety pits, I’m trying to figure out this, the last year of my 50’s. Where my work will go, what sorts of interactions I will value, when and how to connect.

It’s hard not to feel bruised and mistreated in this time. And that’s from someone whose wounds are almost entirely self inflicted. By just about any standard I am living a life of immense privilege and luck. I’ve found a way of living that allows me to engage creatively with my world and with friends. A very good life. So if I’m feeling pained it is from the things I drag into that life, the time I spend misusing media, the drains on my attention and energy.

There have been more and more days this past year where I have woken up, and immediately grabbed my phone, scanning twitter until I located the perfectly upsetting piece of news, and then flipping over to instagram to see how many endorphin nuggets of attention my latest picture has received. Buzzing with distress and self-satisfaction, I then head out to meet my day off center and with no plan for action. Time slips by, things don’t get done, the fear of deadlines looms until I flop down to sleep and wake and do it all again. Hardly sustainable.

For a while this year I had the luxury of remembering what my days used to be – how many books I read, how my ideas and investigations were guided by my intuitions and not driven by the priorities of platforms. I need to value my attention at a higher rate, and have the faith that I do not have to be part of every conversation. Deeper and slower can be the watchwords.