The end of one year and the start of another
When I finish a year, no matter which year, I always take a break. A break from the noise my mind constantly makes while I write, read or play… 2024 went by, and it went by fast, but it went by like a bulldozer: it demolished beliefs and desires and left room for the rebirth of a life I thought was behind me, a life in my hometown. The truth is that leaving the past in the past is harder than staying in the present, and staying is what everyone wants. Few manage it.
When I realized the year was coming to an end, I made a post here, one of those inspiring ones. I always like doing that; I enjoy knowing someone read me and then felt like writing. My plans were very simple: I will stop for a week, then come back full force, I need to tell the world a bit more about a book I am writing. None of that happened.
I have always liked making plans. They usually came true, and even when a plan did not go as planned, it still happened, and it was good. When I made my plans for 2025, I felt something different. I knew they would not come true; deep down I knew something was wrong and that I needed to rebuild myself somehow. When January began, I thought about leaving social media, leaving this newsletter behind and quitting several projects. I held myself back.
Between January and now, 2025 has been a pit of abandoned plans and many muffled voices, all so I could focus on changing the “self”. It is very hard to write anything when you are unhappy with who you are, essentially, and this is not about my profession, my engagement or my friendships, but about a set of more internal things, from intrusive thoughts to poorly thought-out actions. Things that seem out of my control, though therapy has been showing me that is not quite true.
Anyway, I have been taking care of myself, and now I have some sense of where I am going, even though the road is still foggy.
The direction of a soul
I recently finished God of War: Ragnarök, and what a game, right? It is one of those that impress you from start to finish; it had been a long time since I played something this good this relentlessly. The game helped me see some things about personal growth, and also about the direction of a life. In many ways it works with that theme, the idea of a devastated “self” trying to become someone better, someone different, bigger, improved. I am not a devastated person, but I could become one if I do not find the right path, the direction.
When I started writing a new book, still last year, I asked myself again and again what I was telling the reader, what story that was, and whenever I could not find a definitive answer, I froze, stopped writing and started over. I did that so many times that I forgot the pleasure of writing that story, and after a few months it went into the drawer to gather dust with so many others that went through the same process. I feel the problem is not the stories, it is me, and I am working on it.
When you consume a lot of what you love, and you work with it, it becomes impossible not to compare yourself to your idols, and between comparison and perfectionism there is only a bridge, a very small one, a bridge that works almost like a treadmill: once you step on it, you keep crossing from one side to the other, endlessly. Comparing yourself and never finishing, lost in silly perfectionism, with no direction, no path, no purpose, lost in a “self” that does not exist, that you invented to make sure you do not change, because change brings discomfort, and unconsciously you fight to stay in the same place. The comfortable place.
From disappointment to new plans
In “The Name of the Wind”, one of my favorite books, Kvothe says (Chapter 64): A moment in the mind is worth nine in the fire. I have never forgotten that line. It gives me the answer I need whenever I am standing in front of a bonfire (too many problems). Before stepping into the fire to put out your blazes, step into your mind; it will be worth nine times more, and that calms me down. The answers are in the mind, even in the face of disappointment.
I have been disappointed more times in 2025 than in all of 2024, and we are still in March, but apparently disappointment does not care about time as much as we do, the ones who invented the concept. I learned from my fiancée that time only exists for us; for our traumas and pain it is a concept that was never invented. That is why I try to look differently at some things life forces me to see.
I have friends I thought I would never see again who were with me recently, and friends I imagined I would see every month whom I have not seen in almost a year. That hurts, but I do not want to talk much about it, friendships… I had a contract with a publisher, we were going to publish comics. I wrote more than 100 of them, did you know? Some I know will never see the light of day. That story made me laugh a few days later: I complained about delays and the lack of planning, and I got a contract termination email, just like that. Apparently I am not the only person with psychological problems. My path always crosses with people who are more lost than I am, but because they think they know the way, they prefer the darkness of their own bad decisions to the clarity of admitting mistakes. That does not amuse me, but it helps me find that thing… Direction.
Kvothe says, in chapter 87 of “The Name of the Wind”: Wisdom hinders daring. At another moment, in another book, a character tells Kvothe “so many thoughts, my Kvothe. You know too much to be happy.” Lines like these make me think that, having been seen as a smart child, a smart adult and a clever person my whole life, I never allowed myself to make mistakes. And to be happy you need daring, you need to know how to fail, to learn while taking risks, and above all to be ignorant in the right measure, because without a measured selfishness we are handed over to wishes that are not our own. Life is like that, a messy balance between good things and bad things. Good for whom? Bad for whom? Fair questions.
I have new plans, and I will not say much about them today. I will show you soon, and you will have fun following me through it. Things have changed, but for the better. Better for me.
Next, a piece of flash fiction to close this conversation :D
Flash Fiction: The River
He was sitting on the bank of a river. It was the river that had taken the lives of the people he loved, and still he did not feel anger toward the river; he felt anger toward fate, the fate that had allowed his loved ones to die. Every day he waited for an answer, and he truly believed it would come from the river: an answer for what happened, an answer for the pain. One day he fell into the river. That day, he drowned. You know I am not talking about a river, right?
See you, explorers!
Originally published in Prosa & Pixel, on Substack. See it on Substack · Subscribe to Prosa & Pixel · All issues