Hello, 2017. I know we are only into mid-January of the new year, but surely we are living in strange times. In a few days, we'll have a new president, and the existence of the democratic world as we currently know it is in jeopardy. The days pass one at a time, we continue on with our jobs, our lives, our everyday routines, and on the surface life looks to be the same as it was last year. Yet, the future is more blurred than ever before, and I feel apprehensive about where we are as a country. I don't know if you feel the same way, but these days I walk around wearing an invisible layer of discomfort and distrust. Last year was a difficult one and it left most of us angry and disillusioned. I find myself now looking at strangers wondering if they are in part to blame for our current political landscape, whether they are with us or against us. The glass half-full perspective is that for the first time in my life I do not take liberty for granted, and I understand that collective activism is the only viable solution - I feel called to do my part. Whether you can agree with me or not, I firmly believe that one conclusive sentiment we all feel is that we are alive at a time that decades from now, will be analyzed and studied in history books worldwide.
At the end of every year, I find myself looking for inspirational words to mentally realign myself and over the years I have been drawn to the "New Year's Wish" words of a singular writer, Neil Gaiman. Seventeen years ago, he wrote the first ever New Year's Wish, which was as follows:
May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.
His words are for me the right mixture of hope and realism, composed together to be both poetry and advice, and they almost always emphasize the importance of creating art.
From a decade ago:
...I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you'll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.
From half a decade ago:
And for this year, my wish for each of us is small and very simple.
And it's this.
I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.
Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.
So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.
Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it.
Make your mistakes, next year and forever.
I'd like to end this first entry with his words from 2012, as this particular New Year's Wish seems more relevant now than ever. Let us enter this new year courageously - whether it is facing and overcoming personal challenges, finally making the changes we've been putting off using multitudes of excuses, or putting ourselves out there despite the real possibility of failure. We are all entitled to live the life we dream of, but we must earn it through hard work and bravery.
It's a New Year and with it comes a fresh opportunity to shape our world.
So this is my wish, a wish for me as much as it is a wish for you: in the world to come, let us be brave – let us walk into the dark without fear, and step into the unknown with smiles on our faces, even if we're faking them.
And whatever happens to us, whatever we make, whatever we learn, let us take joy in it. We can find joy in the world if it's joy we're looking for, we can take joy in the act of creation.
So that is my wish for you, and for me. Bravery and joy.
