[Archive] 2023 Madcap-Recap//2024-To-The-Floor (Intro)
(Archival Post - originally posted to our now-defunct (RIP) prior website on Jan 5th, 2023.)
I got a lot to talk about from the year just past, and a lot more on my mind about the year ahead. So much so that I couldn't contain it to the 2023-recaps as floating around social media presently.
Too much has happened and too much is happening to myself and too many other people. My focus isn't even really on myself anyway, and hasn't been for a while.
I can't justify a fully self-facing review of 2023, even though it's perfectly normal and valid to do so. I feel, on reflection, a hell of a lot happened to us as a community, and I'd like to enshrine that in as comprehensive a review as I have the energy to muster.
Admittedly, because of 2023 that isn't much energy presently. But I will do my best. :)
HOUSEKEEPING:
Content:
'hyuck hyuck! 2011 called, they want their meme back lol!!!1!!1!!1!!11one'
Safety and Content Warnings: Discussions in the pieces ahead of this 'Intro' post will explore mental health, mental illness, disability, disadvantage and some potentially triggering topics. Be mindful if you feel it's a bit much to engage with anything that isn't helpful for you right now.
This is just a tribute blog/podcast, after all.
As mentioned below, these CW-able topics will have some optimism baked into the analysis, but beware I won't be pulling punches and it won't be light-hearted. If you're fatigued of rhetoric around these, I'd recommend skipping to my Part 2 episode (TBA).
Potential Accessibility Issues: Use of jargonistic terms in places, which is unavoidable given the scope. I'll streamline what I can, but I'm not forsaking depth either.
Politics: Whilst deliberately not a focal point of the Recap episodes (or indeed the whole podcast) at all, if you're one of those 'keep ur politics out of muh XYZ' types?', I wouldn't recommend this series. I especially wouldn't recommend Part 1, maybe skip to Parts 2 and 3.
Furthermore, I'm unashamedly left-leaning. If you have conservative-leaning political views, these episodes (and indeed the podcast itself) may not be for you.
It's also not for self-professed centrists because something-something Overton Window something-something apologists.
Format (Blog vs. Podcast Episode):
Whether this gets converted into podcast episode form is entirely contingent on my time and energy, both of which are seriously strained at the moment (hence no content for some time).
I'm new to audio production and statistically, about every 20min worth of recited podcast content takes me about an hour of focused effort to tidy up. Essentially double that with my current brain-machine functioning. A daunting and likely honestly unrealistic prospect for the near future.
I'll do my best, but in honesty there'll either be a delay or I'll jettison the prospect of doing an audio read of these articles completely. Hopefully I'll eat my words, but just be mindful if you prefer audio form. Thanks for understanding.
There we go.
If you haven't already gleaned from my over-inclusive, verbose and over-explanatory written style, plus the warnings heeded thus far, this is likely not going to be anything approaching a casual read/listen. I don't begrudge you for choosing to skip over, but I'm not budging on the volume or type of content ahead.
I've been stalling on this for months out of the sheer difficulty that has come with trying to boil down 2023 and 2024 down into more approachable, bite-size samples. Initially, this was intended as a couple of podcast episodes by December 2023 at the latest but the more I delve into my recap and look ahead, the greater and deeper the scope.
Far too much of importance has happened in 2023, and we're headed in some very convoluted and scary directions. Our lives seem to be reaching a critical point of complexity that is both cognitively draining and existentially threatening. I'm not going to refute that the respect and care it deserves, we deserve, by making things nice and compressed.
Don't like it? That's okay. This blog/podcast are for you, but they're also for me too. InnerStrengthCheck was borne from personal need and as an enriching project for myself, not some min-maxing content-creator AI-sounding slush.
Plus, I have over seventy pages just of fucking bullet-points as to what will be covered. Statistically only a smidge of that will make it onto the screen/speaker, but it's not exactly a casual chat either.
Again, anyone who knows me and my absolute relentless stream of verbal diarrhea can attest to this being of completely no surprise. And once more, I make no apologies for this.
Literally shitty jokes aside, but also on that topic - Late-stage capitalism is accelerating at a pace neither we nor itself can seem to keep up with.
By way of perusing my content thus far (or honestly, even knowing me personally), you wouldn't be remiss to label me as somewhat of (among other things) a depressive, a nihilist*, cynic, pessimist etc. And that is admittedly largely true. I'm a product of my times, my generation, and some serious ongoing work being done on myself.
(* - future episode marker! I'd consider myself more in vein of existential humanism, but I'm trying to avoid too much of my own usual topic-derailment here.)
I've seen many, *many* examples of hope, of optimism amidst uncertainty. Of incredible strength, energy, compassion and resilience. Of rebuilding community, individual triumphs, firebrand advocacy and meaningful change.
However, underpinning the surface (or even deeper) anxiety, frustration, depression, stress and pessimism are core values, ethos and philosophical principles that lay calm, like the waters deep beneath a raging storm.
Waters that lay undisturbed by neither the cyclonic gusts laid by our macro-level socieconomic climate, my lived recovery mental illness journey, and/or challenges living as a round neurodivergent peg in a very square neurotypical hole world.
In honestly, I can't see or feel or even grasp at those depths right now. I'm a fairly despondent, dysthymic sad-sack of a man in early Jan, 2024. But there is some phenomenological depth that thoughts and external forces can't reach. A depth where lies some resilient and positive force that refuses to give in completely.
I'm not one for spirituality or blind optimism.
Hell, I'm severely lacking in a rational level of optimism. Albert Ellis would tsk-task this podcast, I think. Freud might dig it? Maybe. It's certainly delivered in a Jungian style (a.k.a. 'what the fuck are you talking about dude? Get on with it!').
But (and there are many events which show promise to this), I'm a firm believer that life is like Star Wars. And not just in the sense that everything feels painstakingly commodified and frustratingly saccharine compared to the past, lol.
Inexorably, inevitably and possibly not without significant pain - the forces of evil lose out in literature and in real life, in the end. Whatever opposing forces can't take care of, the relentless march of entropy will take care of on a long-enough time-scale. Fuck yeah proton decay!
Nothing is ever that simple, of course, but I stand firm in at least trying to side with our biologically engineered drive to 1. survive, and 2. progress ourselves as a social organism. And those drives are counter to a lot of the oppressive forces which presently threaten both of the above.
Instead of being a small cabal of horned dudes with red sabers who fall down holes whilst cut in half, the 'Sith' in our reality, is more an all-encompassing void for a lot. An entrenched and deepening pervasive helplessness that is getting harder and harder to reality-test, as it increasingly is the reality.
Things feel fucked. I feel fucked. Many others i've interacted with or observed are claiming similar, at a time when we usually feel compelled to rehearse the early-Jan rhetoric. Or, indeed feel at least a smidge of placebo-effect, maybe-this time hopefulness.
Honestly? I'm actually not very positive about the state of the world, society or my own prospects. 2023 felt like it just reinforced that learnt helplessness.
It's in these times, then, that perhaps instead of sticking fully and completely to depressive realism, we all have to dig real fucking deep within and find some of that juicy, mildly-delusional sense of faith and optimism.
Not faith in a religious sense, mind. Moreso, faith in deriving the energy required to muster up any genuine answers to questions like 'How are we going to literally pool the resources to survive as a species?' or indeed 'How are going to survive 2024 at all?'.
Look.
As crabby, cynical and pseudo-intellectual my content may present, I do hope I can bring some of that innate, childish optimism back to the fore. Ideally without sounding like some toxic-positiv conspirituality-guru, and locked down with empirical evidence and additional perspectives wherever possible.
If diving into a multi-part series isn't in your cognitive or emotional capacity right now and you'd rather just chill, I fully endorse that!
In fact, that's one of the main directives of my podcast...
Despite *gestures to all the bullshit*, please find some time to chill and be you.
Okay.
For you leftover weirdos brave enough/lacking in sanity, here's a sample of what's on offer ahead. A roadmap of the recap.
No...cap?
STRUCTURE:
Series inclusive of this intro (obviously) and three major parts total.
Part 1 (State of the Podcast Address): A more self-contained and practical analysis of InnerStrengthCheck from 2023 as its' own entity. Major influences/inspirations, key achievements, reflections, challenges and some goals/directions for the year ahead. Basically a rundown of ISC and how it went.
Parts 2 and 3 (Society/Lifestyle): Parts 2 and 3 are a comprehensive review of both society/culture and major lifestyle domains in 2023. These will be reviewed and grouped into three categories - 'Setbacks', 'Successes' and 'Directions'.
Setbacks are named with Seligman's 3 P's of depression in mind - i.e. permanent, pervasive and personal. Shit is fucked, but it's highly unlikely shit is categorically fucked forever/in 100% of all aspects of life/nor squared on you, me or any one individual person in particular. (Worth looking into if those theme sound like the bulk of your internal self-talk. Seriously).
'Successes' speaks for itself. I'll be honest, part of me feels like the word itself just conjures up cringe-inducing imagery of webinars and #successmindset tropey gross hyper-capitalist bullshit. Sure. But also, we need some wins, and there are plenty to be had even in the most fucked of places. Using a psychology analogy as per Seligman above, we require reflection on successes if we're ever to make it through this shit, both in isolation and together.
'Directions' will be a crystal-ball/astral-plane projection for the year ahead. Likewise, strategies, resources and opportunities from those more expert than myself will be used. I'll also formulate some of the same from my little worker-ant perspective.
I chose these categories as rough themes because life in the 2020's is more enmeshed and complicated than ever. More than ever, not much of anything fits into Thing Good or Thing Bad these days, especially not at a society-wide scale. Few things will fit neatly into any one of the above category, so there may be some repetition.
[Psst - hopefully obvious caveat: By 'review', the categories themselves aren't performative/rank-based in nature. They're intended to reflect the general tone of my observations.]
Part 1 - State of The Podcast Address
Bit more straightforward, this one. An overview of the last 12 months in the world of ISC.
Some of the major themes:
Housekeeping for 2024.
How ISC performed - literally (according to metrics), and from my point of view as host/content-creator.
Influences - on the podcast, past and future content. Music, favourite 'casts and creators
As with Parts 2 and 3 - Setbacks, Successes and Directions.
Content Creation (and Necromancy!) - Things to be explored, things in the pipeline, things potentially resurrected from the ADHD Graveyard Of Ideas.
Invitations: To you!
Part 2 - S O C I E T Y
a) Burnout:
I stand firm that burnout (the concept, not the rad racing game where you get to cause absolute carnage) was basically the overarching theme of life in 2023 for many if not most of us.
I understand there's biases in that assertion, but we are at an alarming cross-roads as a species. Burnout is endemic, worse than ever and a serious post-pandemic-pandemic (panpandemic?!) which presents a massive existential threat. It warrants analysis and discussion, and needs to be addressed as seriously as a phenomenon dangerous enough to be on the same radar as climate change re: our future.
Thus, this section explores burnout from a society-wide perspective. And not just occupational burnout - tech, psychology, etc.
b) Community:
Where Australia and indeed our globalised world is at in terms of our sense of community, as well as some realities as to how that is actually going in practice.
c) Discourse:
Examining general themes of social discourse from the past year. This is broad-strokes and will relate to everything from economics and mental health to Big Tech, AI, automation, social media, conspiracy theories and hustle-culture.
c) Governance:
How we did as a nation/planet in terms of our civic duties towards health, wellbeing and addressing current issues (Hint: a very mixed-bag).
Part 2 - Lifestyle
Cool stuff from 2023, missed stuff, thoughts about fun and enriching stuff, and stuff to look forward to.
a) Video Gaming
New titles purchased this year/thoughts on same, major developments in the industry, thoughts about video gaming as a culture in general, predictions for the year ahead.
My favourite newly-acquired titles, old faves, changing gaming habits and explorations by genre.
What's on the backlog/radar for 2024.
b) Tabletop
As above with Video Games re: industry, news, developments, observations, culture, etc in 2023.
Reflections on my campaigns run last year in group format (Mutant Year Zero and Forbidden Lands), solo RPG's played (Starforged, Five Leagues From The Borderlands 3e), titles I wished I'd explored more.
Projections, wishlists and predictions for 2024.
c) Board Games:
As above but... board games, lol.
d) MUSIC!
As my greatest non-interpersonal, non-work-related passion in life, music will be comprehensively covered!
As above... you know the drill.
Reflections on gigs attended in 2024, some key experiences with same. Gigs I'm looking forward to in 2024.
Reflections on favourite albums, genre trends, changes to my listening habits and engagement with music generally.
Musicianship - My impostor-syndrome-riddled reflections of guitar and bass in 2023, and directions for 2024.
Some ambitions around music production for the year!
Final Thoughts Before Getting Started:
I'm a broken record, but I just want to validate and acknowledge something on your behalf.
We are truly living in completely unprecedented times, and everything feels both sharply in decline and stagnant as frozen shit [citation needed].
Just know that whoever you are, and as aloof and cynical as I may present on face value, I believe in you, in us.
I'm not going to spoon-fed you loving platitudes. If anything, we've got a LOT of work to do.
But please remind yourself of the true spirit behind why InnerStrengthCheck even exists:
Your rights to rest and recovery aren't negotiable. Your fundamental human rights to create, explore, discover, connect and grow are enshrined in both legislation and biology.
Don't ever underestimate the importance of, nor your capacity to relax, kick back or get out there and have some fun. These may seem mutually exclusive to you and your situation, but I promise that they're not.
Finding meaning, enrichment, entertainment, respite and connection outside of work and *gestures to everything* are possible irrespective of where you find yourself. I'm living proof of that, and so are you.
OK.
Some parting words of kindness from one of the more kitsch-named but genuinely useful and heartfelt spaces on the raging dumpster-fire that is social media, Self-Love Rainbow:
