January 2026 Update
“We'll take a cup o' kindness yet, For Auld Lang Syne.”
“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!”
— Ebenezer Scrooge
Another year has gone, and as I look back I wish I had a Ghost to show me the significant moments. As I learned from Neal Postman in Technopoly, every technology carries an agenda, and our phones, in offering the ability to document every moment, seem to assert that memory is irrelevant; that the human mind is too fallible to be trusted with something as important as what has happened and is happening and will happen. Well, I reject that with every force of my being. For who can tell the self what is happening to it, other than itself? Even (or especially) those of us who believe in an Authority who can supersede the self, must yet work to distinguish between those words the self wishes to hear from the Word and the words the self needs to hear from the Word. Technology ought to be a tool, and nothing more. Those spectres of Ignorance and Want, which have haunted mankind since before Dickens named them in A Christmas Carol, have not been driven away by the information age. So take a cup of kindness (and I mean actual kindness) this year, for old time's sake, and pass it on. God knows we need it.
Writing
Drafting continues on my new novel. I am going to try and up my daily word goal to 500 from 250. I suppose that might seem low, but it's about all I can manage as a full time parent. If I keep to it I should have a book's draft done within a year. I've also had an essay in my head for awhile, so I've got to try and get that out there.
Music
I guess I should set some sort of New Year's goal, so here it is: Record demos for all of my Lit Songs by the end of the year. I've decided to try and get into a studio at some point, but I could probably only get one or two down, especially ones that require a band. But if I accept that my demo recordings aren't going to be studio recordings I think I can get the album done, as a sort of trial run that I can show people. First on the list is the Tess song that I did for Tiny Desk last year. Ugh, 'last year.'
Reading
My wife and I read Pride and Prejudice and it was lovely. It was my first time reading it since seventh grade, so it was very refreshing. It was also refreshing because Jane Austen is, to me, the Shakespeare of novelists. Her style is so drained of frivolity and bitterness that it could almost be accused of vacuity were it not so very essential. There will, of course, be words and constructions that will puzzle a modern reader because of semantic drift, but once you get used to it is is very rewarding, and her books are not long. Like Shakespeare, they continue when you put them down and recur to you throughout your life. I am also jealous that she lived at a time when people communicated with letters. They are the perfect literary device because you can quote them wholesale, and the reader can imagine themselves in the mind of the protagonist who is reading the letter. Instant immersion, even when you close the book, because you, along with Elizabeth, will be thinking about Mr. Darcy's letter as you go about your life.
It really is a lovely story about the value of true connubial felicity, and I think I will be saying more about it in my next essay. So stay tuned. I'll have it by the end of the month? 🤞.
I'll let Elizabeth round this one out:
“The more I see of the world, the more I am dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on either merit or sense.” (130).
Later on, on learning from the past:
“How despicably have I acted! ... I, who have prided myself on my discernment! — I, who have valued myself on my abilities! who have often disdained the generous candour of my sister, and gratified my vanity, in useless or blameable distrust! — How humiliating is this discovery! — Yet, how just a humiliation! — Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly. — Pleased with the preference of one, and offended by the neglect of the other, on the very beginning of our acquaintance, I have courted prepossession and ignorance, and driven reason away, where either were concerned. Till this moment, I never knew myself.” (193).
To knowing oneself in the Past, Present, and Future.
“What are men to rocks and mountains?” (147).
Works Cited
Burns, Robert. “Auld Lang Syne.” 1788.
Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol. Chapman and Hall, 1843.
Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. Aucturus Publishing Limited, 2011 (1813).
Thank you for reading! I greatly regret that I will most likely never be able to meet you in person and shake your hand, but perhaps we can virtually shake hands via my newsletter, social media, or a cup of coffee sent over the wire. They are poor substitutes, but they can be a real grace in this intractable world.
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