It's the first Hive Power Up Day of 2025, and... I won't be participating. It looks like the coming year will be a major pivot point for me. If you want to join, as always, check out the @hivebuzz channel for information on the challenge, and power up at least 10 HP for a badge. I'll be putting my participation on hiatus due to some personal matters. More on that below.
Image credit
Alrighty, on with the now-traditional retrospective. I hardly posted at all, so this will be short.
- November Restrospective and December Plans, last month's look back at my daily post marathon.
- Support Hive Creators for Christmas, wherein I listed some content creators who sell products. Christmas is done, but you might want to order something for a birthday or Valentine's Day. It'll be here before you know it, so why not just use this reminder to ensure you don't forget?
- Trust the Science? I trust science, but I don't trust scientists, especially when they tell me not to apply the scientific method or other disciplines to their public policy claims.
That's it. Three posts. I used PeakD snaps intermittently for short-form content here and there, too, but that isn't as easy to link and far less relevant to my monthly milestone post anyway.
Previous updates from 2024:
- 2023 Retrospective and January 1st Power Up Day! Yeah, I thought I was exhausted and emotionally drained then.
- January Retrospective: 7 posts and a lot of thoughts.
- February Retrospective: 8 posts.
- March Retrospective: 10 posts.
- April Retrospective: 4 posts due to a long road trip to see the eclipse and a general internet sabbatical of sorts.
- May Retrospective: 11 posts.
- June Retrospective: 11 posts and some short musings.
- July Retrospective: 10 posts.
- August Retrospective: 9 posts.
- September Retrospective: 15 posts.
- October Retrospective: 16 posts, including a lot more travel content because that road trip had a lot more I wanted to document.
Plus 31 posts in November and 3 for December brings a grand total of 135 posts for 2024, unless I miscounted somewhere along the way. If I average 1 post for every 2.7 days in 2025, it'll be a miracle.
I've been a bit ambiguous about stuff over the last couple months, but I am making big changes in the coming year. My 2025 resolution will be 1080p. No 4K for me yet. But seriously, for starters, I'll probably be a lot less active. I won't be participating in Power Up Day today or for the foreseeable future because I can't guarantee I'll be online very regularly anyway.
You see, I quit my job and will no longer be a librarian. Instead, I'm taking a leap into the unknown and planning to travel a lot while I decide where I want to live in the future. I don't plan to air dirty laundry online, partly because I prefer to retain the illusion of anonymity, so many reasons will remain unsaid here. I will say that between chronic illness and old injuries, winter simply hurts. I need sunshine and warmer weather, so I expect to go south. Hopefully, this also means visiting neat places and sharing stories from the road. Drop a comment or send a message in the PeakD memo chat feature with your suggestions for what I should see in the lower 48!
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow let’s go into this city, and spend a year there, trade, and make a profit.” Whereas you don’t know what your life will be like tomorrow. For what is your life? For you are a vapor that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away. For you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will both live, and do this or that.” But now you glory in your boasting. All such boasting is evil. (James 4:13-16, WEB)
Of course, "The best laid plans of mice and men" and whatnot applies if you prefer a more secular commentary, too. We'll see. I've put a lot of money into the Friend-Shaped Car to ensure it's roadworthy for an even wilder trip than the two I took in 2024. No one has guessed its make and model yet, so feel free to speculate on that, too.
Bur since the year will likely be chaotic, I plan to reduce post output, place these monthly updates on hold, and not plan any particular power-up schedule in 2025. I don't like to vote for posts I haven't read, so I won't be using auto-voting. I'll probably also delegate a lot of my HP to curation communities and projects. Comment with your favorites. I know @stickupboys are winding down their curation project, so let me know who else supports music or other communities!
