Let's Keep Each Other Honest
A few thoughts for the new year
Lots of work to do in 2025.
I don’t even feel like looking back at the very, very uneven year that has passed. Just ahead now.
So here are some resolutions, shared here in the hope that you can keep me honest and focused, and that we can keep each other honest and focused:
I have a couple of writing projects I’d like to publish in the year ahead, one of which I previewed in last week’s podcast. I also have some new ideas for my writing (and for the podcast), new directions which should be rewarding if I can stick to my plan. I can already hear my voice evolving.
I’d like to find new collaborators—editors and publishers, yes, but also artists of all kinds. My work is almost always solitary but I’m a person who needs community, and I love the weird, creative community most of all. So I’d love to find a way to do some good work with other weirdos.
I’d like to reduce my anxiety. I’ve noticed it building over the past year, in ways I recognize from my upbringing. (Isn’t it funny, how we find ourselves adopting the same behaviors we found most annoying in our family members?) I’ve already identified a few useful practices that calm me down, but finding the time for them is always a struggle.
You can find all of my work at www.johntessitore.com. And most important, I have to make a significant change in the way I live my life—a long time coming—and would like to go through the process with strength and grace. Don’t we all.
Do these sound familiar? I’m sure you share some version of these goals for yourself.
The challenge for all of us will be to keep at least some focus on our personal resolutions during a year that already promises to be tumultuous at best, and utterly catastrophic at worst.
On top of our personal goals, I know we’ll all be called upon to confront injustice of one kind or another. Especially in the United States, and especially if we have any hope of slowing environmental collapse, or preventing tragic conflict, or easing the enormous inequalities and cruelties of our existing economic and political systems.
We’re going to have a hell of a fight on our hands.
In one way or another, 2025 will be uniquely challenging. Let’s try to keep each other honest and focused…and be true to ourselves and each other.
Be True, Episode 73: What Do You Believe?
John reads his poem “We were typical boys” from his chapbook All the Lonely American Roads. He also discusses childhood history lessons, competing worldviews, and our big dilemma in the year ahead.
Stay true to yourself John ,we all waver on life's rocky road but you are strong and sparking with creativity .
Have a good year .