I'm typing this in my kitchen, at a small stretch of counter that rises taller than the rest. I use it most days as an improvised standing desk while I make my tea.

Today's teas? I'm so glad you asked. The first two are Christmas gifts from my wife, from Kolkata Chai Co., one a special-blend black cardamom chai, the other a classic masala chai. The third and final variety will be a maple espresso black tea blend from Trader Joe's, which I bought on a lark earlier this week. I say "will be" because I'm still on my first cup—the black cardamom.

In other words, I'm just at the start of a nice, quiet Saturday afternoon, and in an effort to continue populating this space, I thought I'd take a moment to try to think about the year just past and the year ahead and maybe try to set an intention or two.

I didn't have a great 2024, if I'm being honest. Was too online. Didn't touch enough grass. Didn't see friends in real life enough. Didn't leave the house enough at all, frankly. Spent a lot of time staring at the little screen in my hand and at the late hour displayed on my watch and at the fresh-laundry pile that always seemed to be growing in the armchair next to my usual spot on the couch, perpetually waiting to be folded and put away.

I fretted over the state of things (in my body, in my personal life, in the nation and outside of it) in a way that, in retrospect, was not particularly helpful, that on some days rendered me inert with frustration/grief—but that I always knew from my phone was something to worry about anyway, the chorus of talking heads, amateur pundits, and armchair experts conspiring to keep all the worries top of mind. But also of course the algorithms would serve me more of this if they saw that it's what I happened to be paying attention to. The modern internet enables the ability to aware oneself to death.

I think the way out of this in 2025 is not to pay less attention overall, to shut out the world, but to pay more attention to my attention, if that makes sense. Where is it directed? What am I reading / watching / listening to? What value and/or takeaways am I actually extracting from these things? Beyond what they're telling me, what do I think about them personally?

And when it comes to the algorithmic spaces, how am I complicating them? How am I working to look beyond what they're spoon-feeding me? And when posting on them, what work am I doing to go against their grain—to not be seduced into homogeneity (either of the personal or social variety) by the prospect of likes/views/engagement?

Maybe this is something I can use this blog for: radical attention in the new year. A small corner for me to go long on what's invading my brain and to explore other ways of thinking about it. And maybe by posting through it, I can find other things I'd like to pay/call attention to. These are not novel concepts for a blog, and yet they feel novel for me. I've gotten so used to being a longtime listener; I'd like to try being a more frequent first-time caller.

And in addition to any longer posts on particular topics, I've got a few ideas for recurring posts, to keep this space more regularly updated:

1. Journey to the End of the Shelf: This is a project I've been working on for a while. I started it on Tumblr, then carried it over to TikTok, and basically the idea is I'm working to get back to shelf zero, meaning no unread books occupying my shelves. I've worked myself into a pretty good hole over the years, and I've got 134 left to go to get out of it. Maybe I'll continue to post TikTok book reviews for the project, if TikTok manages to hang around after Jan. 19, but the nice thing about moving it here is I don't have to worry about its ties to any one platform.

2. As-yet untitled week-in-review posts about what I'm reading / watching / listening to: I'm probably an above-average consumer of various media. Not a brag, just a fact. I haven't felt in conversation with much of what I consume in a long time, though, outside the confines of my own head. These posts would be an attempt to remedy that. I'm imagining something in the vein of Steven Soderbergh's annual list, but compiled at a weekly cadence, with some ruminations of my own on what the media on the list has had me thinking about.

In general, I want to try to look at this space more as a place for ongoing trains of thought rather than fully concluded ones. I don't need to come here with a fully fleshed-out argument or thesis. I need to come here ready to ponder, to plumb the depths, to peek in the nooks and crannies.

That's the mission, anyway. Here's to a better, more thoughtful, more attentive 2025 in which I stand more like a tree and less like a leaf against the winds of the discourse.