2024 in Review

2025-01-22

2024 in Review

tl;dr:

Do the thing.

Major life events

  • After 3-ish years at Remote, I joined a seed-stage tech startup called Baton! We've since raised our Series A, and I'm having a great time working all over the tech stack again. If you want to buy or sell a small business, try us!
  • We took a family trip to Italy in September. 3 weeks, which is the longest I've ever taken off of anything going back to the end of high school. We all managed to get sick twice (and had our first experience with COVID, yay), but in the midst of all that I managed to have a great time in Piano di Sorrento and Rome. Families with small children are treated so well in Italy (at least, that was our experience), and it was incredibly jarring to step into the Atlanta airport on our way back.
  • My son turned 3! Being a parent has been an incredible journey so far (as in, defies credulity when I stop to think about it for more than a moment). It's a joy and a challenge, exhausting and fulfilling, superlative and superlative.
  • We (finally, finally, finally) moved to the midcoast of Maine! We've been talking about doing this since early 2019, and despite our family (and the world) being in a wildly different place than it was then, we made the jump. In December. From Florida. A lot of winter clothing has been purchased, and a lot of cold-weather lessons are being learned.

Lessons:

Media

Per usual, I did a horrible job of keeping track of what I read/watched/listened to. These are the things I happened to jot down or remember.

Books

  • Lots of books by Guy Gavriel Kay - If you're looking for an entry point to his work, I'd suggest A Brightness Long Ago. I technically re-read that in 2024, but reading that followed by Children of Earth and Sky is a solid way to start.
  • Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed by James C. Scott - it can be a bit dry at times, but this is a very illuminating look at the limits of planning when it comes to complex interdependencies that cannot fully be understood—in other words, ecology, human and otherwise.
  • The Baroque Cycle (Quicksilver, The Confusion, and The System of the World) by Neal Stephenson - It covers a lot of ground, which is fitting given how transformative that time period was. It blends fictional characters and their stories with real historical figures and events. I found these pair quite well, weirdly enough, with Seeing Like a State. The rise of rationalism is a driving force in The Baroque Cycle, and the tragic failings of high modernism (which you might say is a terminal form of rationalism) are covered in Seeing Like a State.
  • The Broken Earth Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin - I finally got around to reading these, and the only thing that let me come up for air was waiting for each title to become available at the library. Lives up to the hype, and then some.
  • The Siege Trilogy by K.J. Parker - I felt the first entry (16 Ways to Defend a Walled City) was the strongest, but I enjoyed all of these books as well as other works by Parker. I'd say Parker is similar to Guy Gavriel Kay in that his settings are "historical fiction with a quarter-turn to the fantastic," but while Kay leavens the sadness and brutality with some joy and love, Parker just doubles down on bleakness, relying on sardonic narrators to cut through some of the despair with sarcastic humor.

Music

  • Johnny Flynn - I can't say enough good things about his music. Even better than his acting (see Emma (2020)). My wife introduced me to his work in both domains, and his folk-rock (emphasis on folk) is something I can queue up over and over.
  • I (once again) went through a few months where I could not go a week without listening to Acabou Chorare by Novos Baianos front-to-back. I mixed in some Tom Zé this time around though.

Podcasts

  • Fall of Civilizations Podcast. A few new episodes per year. Long episodes. Very calm narrator with great voice-acted readings of primary sources (in original language and translated!).
  • My Brother My Brother And Me. Silly, stupid, funny, fun.

Television

  • Shrinking: Watch it. Feel things.

Lessons Learned

  • Take Action: We decided to sell our house and move to Maine on November 7. We were in Maine on December 2 and our house is (fingers crossed) closing next week. I'm trying to keep that momentum going—it's much better to make the leap than spend years thinking about doing it.
  • Take a Break: Despite getting sick twice, the three weeks I took off were very healing. I know it's something not everyone is able to do (I was going to write "privilege" but this should really be a right), but I think at least two consecutive weeks off is essential. It gives you one week to stop thinking about work, and (at least) one week to enjoy yourself.
  • Take a Break, Part 2: I'm learning how to take small breaks throughout the day/week to do play outside with my kid, enjoy a pot of tea, or simply close my eyes and listen to a good song.