12:52 a.m. Herbal tea balanced on the armrest of the couch. Laptop in my lap. I’m taking stock of my year of attention thus far.

On the one hand, I feel victory. I’ve stepped away from so many poisoned platforms: Instagram, TikTok, Twitter (though I was already mostly off that). The remaining feeds on Bluesky and Mastodon are slower and reverse-chron. Been watching more movies and hitting that "Review or log..." button on Letterboxd more often. Been reading at a more sustained pace than I have in years. And not just books; I got an RSS reader set up again, like it’s 2007.

On the other, I feel defeat. So few posts since I posted that post! Is it really so hard for me to sit with a blinking cursor and hammer out a few thoughts? Do I even have thoughts to hammer? Has my brain turned to mush?

I can see now it was a mistake, in that post, to foreshadow certain kinds of posts for the future. I was already boxing myself in with expectations to meet and formulas to refine, completely countermanding the hopes outlined in the end:

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.

Gotta just let this space be what it will be. Gotta just write what comes. Structure can come later and form more naturally, if it must. Been reading some old Ftrain posts again and feeling like Mr. Ford had the right approach. Some days, the words alone are the goal—nicely arranged, yes, but not necessarily grandly unified in message. And maybe other days you achieve something more.