Closing Out 2014 - Part One of...?

Checking job search alerts this morning as I listen to The Current, and getting as ready as I can for the year to come via the Gregorian calendar.

Not sure what else to discuss for the moment, so I'll leave the thread open.

Closing Out 2014 - Part Two of...?

Frank Graves muses about four forces affecting Canada into the forseeable future at iPolitics. I think he's got enough of this correctly understood to be useful, and he may misunderstand just enough to be productively chaotic as well.

In his opening essay for next weekend's Sunday Edition, Michael Enright notes a rising animus towards the Ontario Safe Streets Act, one of the pieces of debris left behind by Mike Harris and his crew during their Revolution Against Common Sense. That law affects urban communities across all of Ontario, not solely Toronto, and it is indeed a good idea to revisit whether or not such a law ought to have been passed to begin with.

More later on...

Closing Out 2014 - Part Three of...?

Happy birthday to liabrown, one of the best fans of the Central City Rogues that I know. Keep on spinning, friend!

Closing Out 2014: Fourth of ....?: Neil Gaiman's New Year's Wishes and gifts

It seems important to preserve and pass this along...for a number of reasons, not all of which I dare openly name. The reasons for not naming them range from personal fears to promises made that I still try to keep. Whether or not I name any of the reasons, though, you might guess at a few, correctly, anyway.

So from Mr. Gaiman's keyboard to your screens:

Originally posted by officialgaiman at New Year's Wishes and gifts

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2014/12/new-years-wishes-and-gifts.html

posted by Neil Gaiman

An old year ends, and takes with it people and sorrows and joys and memories, and a new one is on it way.

A New Year's Gift, for anyone who missed it:

The BBC Radio 4 GOOD OMENS Website, with all six episodes of the Radio Series available to listened to over the next 2-3 weeks.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04knt4h

And a reminder, over at http://acalendaroftales.com/ you can read and listen to all the stories I wrote for the  A Calendar of Tales. January's Tale takes place in the moments between the first and the last chime of twelve midnight, when the Old Year is over and the New Year not yet begun.

Fifteen Years ago, I wrote:

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.

And almost a decade ago I said,

...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.

Half a decade ago, I wrote:

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.

And here, from 2012 the last wish I posted, terrified but trying to be brave, from backstage at a concert:

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.

...

I meant, and mean them all. I wasn't going to write a new one this year. But...

Be kind to yourself in the year ahead. 

Remember to forgive yourself, and to forgive others. It's too easy to be outraged these days, so much harder to change things, to reach out, to understand.

Try to make your time matter: minutes and hours and days and weeks can blow away like dead leaves, with nothing to show but time you spent not quite ever doing things, or time you spent waiting to begin.

Meet new people and talk to them. Make new things and show them to people who might enjoy them. 

Hug too much. Smile too much. And, when you can, love.

Labels:  Happy New Year

       

Closing Out 2014: Fifth of...?

"...staying home tonight, getting lost in that hopeless little screen..."