Hope & Dread

2024: The best of times and the worst of times, all at the same time? (Plus: an invitation!)

Somehow, another year is just hours away from exiting stage left.

I’d originally intended to publish a very different piece about living life out of my comfort zone—complete with a tale of the time I was stranded in an Italian locker room, dripping wet and clothed only in a towel—but I’ve decided instead to close out the year with some thoughts that I sense are more timely.

Before I proceed, let me just offer a general disclaimer that I tested positive for Covid on Christmas Eve, and I’ve spent the last week shut indoors with a nasty cough before finally testing negative just a few hours ago. So if anything in this piece seems off in any way, let’s just chalk it up to the lingering effects of the foggy Covid brain.

Where Things Stand

Since finishing my master’s program about three months ago, I’ve done a bit of flailing about, to be frank. It’s felt like my creative life went, literally overnight, from the hyper intense pace of school to a virtual standstill, as I found myself in a yawning creative vacuum.

While grad school certainly had its challenges, it was also a very real safety net for me when I arrived in a new country. It gave my life structure and routine, as well as a built-in community of English-speaking friends. And it kept me focused on creative and artistic growth, in the process sheltering me from some of the more challenging aspects of relocating overseas. Thus, though I’ve lived in Italy for well over a year now, it feels like the “tunnel of transition” through which I’ve been traveling has not let up in the least this fall. This is the reality of living in a country that is not my own.

In the midst of all of this, I’ve been thinking—and thinking, and thinking—about where my professional life will go from here.

I’m very excited to say that I’ve decided to push forward with expanding my writing on this platform.

This year saw my subscriber base more than double, so I’m hoping to build on that momentum. I have a lot of ideas in various stages of development that I plan to roll out in the coming months, including launching a paid subscription option. I’ll also be making my Born Again book available for sale in the new year. There will be much more to come on all this after the holidays.

But first…

What We’re Walking Into

(Just so you know going into this, I’m going to get pretty dark before pivoting to a decidedly more hopeful note and then ending with an invitation to all of you.)

Though I live thousands of miles away from the land of my birth, for better or worse I am still very attuned to what is happening there. And I’m sorry to say that I think all the ingredients are in place for 2024 to be a very, very, very difficult year for the United States. I think it may well be the roughest year we’ve faced in my lifetime, which means more or less since the 1960s. I think our country and its systems and institutions are likely to be tested in ways we can’t even really allow ourselves to imagine right now—at a time when our social fabric is already tearing at the seams. I’m not saying this to be alarmist or to rain down doom-and-gloom on all; I simply think it’s important that we go in to this next year with eyes wide open so we are prepared for what may befall us.

Of course, I’m not a fortune teller, and maybe the worst won’t happen.¹ But all the sirens are flashing red, making it easy to slip into a state of existential dread. (And I have, trust me—on more than one occasion.)

For starters, as historian Kevin M. Cruse has wryly noted, “It is my sad duty to inform you that we are entering an election year.” And to put it mildly, this is going to be an election unlike any we’ve ever seen. It’s not just that we will likely have the two oldest nominees ever for president (Biden is already the oldest president; Trump, if re-elected, would be older when inaugurated than Ronald Reagan was when he left office). It’s not just that one of the two likely nominees has been indicted in four separate criminal cases and may well be a convicted felon before election day. And it’s not just that there are likely to be numerous third-party options (RFK Jr., Jill Stein, and possibly a high-profile “No Labels” ticket of Joe Manchin and/or Larry Hogan and/or Andrew Yang and/or TBD) that will peel off votes from both the Democratic and Republican nominees in wildly unpredictable ways that are likely to make a close (Electoral College) election even closer. On top of all that, one of the two leading candidates is now regularly parroting Hitler, quoting Putin, and praising Viktor Orban, Kim Jong Un, and other authoritarians on the campaign trail. No less than former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney—daughter of former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney—is loudly sounding the alarm that the United States seems to be sleepwalking into dictatorship. So…things aren’t great.

That is all a lot, but that is not all. There are also two extremely high-stakes wars in which the United States is a key player, though not officially at war. Both have involved thousands of civilian casualties. One is the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II, in which its largest country invaded its second-largest country. The other is the latest chapter in a long-running, bloody, and extremely emotional Middle Eastern conflict that is fraying traditional allegiances on both the right and the left in increasingly volatile ways.

I’ll stop there, lest things get too dark. It’s not hard to see why people are anxious, and angry, and afraid, and exhausted. We’ve been through an awful lot over the last eight years; the stakes have been so high for so long, and they just seem to keep getting higher. Our brains and bodies were simply never meant to live like this.*

I have found myself living in a state of ongoing alarm about my country. I feel like the ground is shifting beneath our feet, and far too many people seem to simply not be paying attention. When I look around, I often feel rather alone. People appear to be going on with their daily lives as if nothing is wrong, as if none of the madness has happened or is happening, as if they simply can’t be bothered to care anymore. I fear we’re headed into an increasingly violent future, and by the time most people tune in and realize how out of control things have gotten, it may well be too late. The wheels are in motion; the question is simply whether the brakes will fail.

AND YET…

As I mentioned, I’ve been overwhelmed by it all more than a couple times in recent months. But about three weeks ago, something changed. I’d been thinking about the fact that (as I said above) all the ingredients are in place for 2024 to be a very difficult year for us, collectively. But suddenly, I realized that it was ALSO true that all the ingredients are in place for 2024 to be my best year ever, personally. I’ve worked so hard to get here, and it would be a shame to squander such an opportunity.

I’m not sure how else to describe this realization except to say that it was a dramatic breakthrough for me, as I was cognizant of the fact that I can no longer let the state of the world determine my personal state of well-being. This pivot was long overdue, and is not exactly rocket science, I realize. But I feel more alive than I have in a long time. It’s truly been exhilarating and liberating, and it’s led me to this place:

I have resolved that I will do everything I can to make 2024 the absolute best year I’ve ever had. And I hope you will do the same!

One thing I plan to do here in the first part of next year is create a "2024 Survival Guide.” It’s for all of you, but it’s also very much for me; I need to have a resource I can quickly turn to to right myself when I start to founder, to remind myself of concrete ways I can make my life the best it can be, and of how I can nurture and grow my relationships within my community.

I already have quite a few ideas I plan to write about, but first I want to invite you to share your ideas. What do you do to really take care of yourself (and those around you)? I’m not talking about self-indulgent pampering, though I don’t mean to discount the occasional value of such a thing. What I have in mind is more “What are actions you take that actually make you feel better in the longer-term, not just in the moment?” (For example: Going to the gym, rather than eating a whole pint of Ben & Jerry’s.)

These can be big or small ideas; they don’t have to be dramatic. I recently heard a woman say that she is a full-time caregiver for a child with a severe illness, and it is very hard for her to get any time for herself. But she’s found that simply drinking a glass of sparkling water with half a grapefruit “from the fancy grocery store” squeezed into it goes a long way toward making each afternoon better. I loved that she had discovered that for herself, and I intend to look for similar choices I can make.

I welcome any and all suggestions, slogans, quotes, resources, tips and tricks. You can just reply to this email (if you are one of my email subscribers, which I hope you are!), or you can comment below if you’re reading this on the Substack website or app. I’ll compile a sampling of the feedback I receive and incorporate it into my upcoming “2024 Survival Guide” post.

I’ll close with a reminder that Joyce Vance always uses at the end of her newsletter that I never fail to find comforting: We’re in this together. Indeed we are.

Happy New Year to all of us! Be safe and well.

Michael

*I thought I’d share a collection of quotes and articles that have resonated with me in recent months, as I’ve pondered the state of things. I hope you find them worthwhile.
-Michael

“It’s good to remember: We are all on borrowed time.” -Anne Lamott

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“I think a lot now about the worst experience of my life, the critical hospitalization of my son (due to) RSV, which is a respiratory disease. Like many viruses, it takes a certain course where it gets worse and worse and worse. It reaches the worst moment. And, if the patient survives, then it gets better and better. The terror of it as a parent is [that] the only way you know it’s getting better is when it’s stopped getting worse. There are a lot of things like that in the world. The conditions of our democratic institutions—we don’t know how much rougher things might get before things get better.” -U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg

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“I’m trying to hold back the darkness…One does what one can.” -Anne Lamott

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“I want to be someone who—on the subway, in the moment—looks up and says, ‘Here. I can help.’” -Kate Cohen

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“My honest view is that things are likely going to get harder before they get better, and we will need to stick together. What is important in moments like these is to not think in binaries: Good/bad, screwed/not screwed. There is no doubt that things are bad. Some things, really bad. And they may get worse.

“But that does not preclude the fact that slowly but surely, some good can be growing as other things fall apart. This is not some syrupy sweet silver lining case for optimism. Rather, it is really about a choice all of us will have to make in life, either consciously or unconsciously: Will I be a person who primarily minds my own business and serves myself? Or will I just be a passive, “neutral” observer of it all? Or will I stand up and try to create good for others and be part of something bigger?

“What I sometimes tell my staff is that the world we are fighting for is already here. It exists in small spaces, places, and communities. We don’t have to deal with the insurmountable burden of coming up with novel solutions to all the world’s problems. Much of our work is about scaling existing solutions, many created by small committed groups of people, that others haven’t seen or don’t even know are around the corner. So while we can’t change the world in a day, we can and do have the power to make our own world within our four walls, or our own blocks. We can grow from there with the faith that somewhere out there, everywhere, others are doing the same. And we will come together. That’s why if you’re a parent, how you parent matters. If you’re a neighbor, how you neighbor matters. Many of our biggest problems are results of massively scaled up isolation from others. That means many of our solutions can be found in creating community.

“Ultimately, we live in this world and in this time. We have no choice but to engage in it while we’re here. So will your engagement hurt or heal? Build or bring down? There is no neutral choice, so we can at least do our best to make good ones and learn and do better the next day. You are allowed to be scared. To grieve. To be angry. But you are also allowed to create good, to be soft, and enjoy the small reprieves. Struggle lasts as long as we do.” -Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (slightly edited and condensed by me for clarity)

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Everything is A Lot

Why You Might Be Going Crazy

Living in ‘survival mode’ causes chronic illness, and may even kill you.

1. Please feel free to calendar a reminder to follow up with me in December 2024 to say I worried for nothing. Nothing would make me happier than to be wrong about all of this!