I wander into the desert more often the older I get. Perhaps to strip away the loose debris of life and find the hard features. Perhaps to see things as they are in the truth of time.

A look back at 2023, at once a momentous and forgetable year that should serve as both a warning and a memory stone.

We’re living in the post-truth era, and we’ve come to detest consequences. We’ve been here before, over and over again throughout the history of our species. But there is a much bigger consequence looming over us.

I visited the Gand Canyon again 37 years after my last visit, and much like the canyon, I’m getting wider faster than I’m getting deeper.

It’s sad to admit that COVID finally caught up to us. It was fun to think we were somehow immune, sort of like believing you were Superman but just hadn’t discovered your powers yet. Such is the fallacy of the human mind.

At some point in your life, you’re confronted with a different version of yourself that will no longer mesh with the version you’ve become. You’re incompatible with a younger version of you.

I tried to ride 400 miles a month in 2022. Here’s what I learned about obsession, passion, bike maintenance, friendships and the Smeagol and Gollum in my brain.

“Politics and the fate of mankind are formed by men without ideals and without greatness. Those who have greatness within them do not go in for politics.” - Albert Camus

The Beatles sang, “There are places I remember,” and I feel the same way. Some forever, not for better. And all those places have their moments. This is one of those moments.

If you ask yourself, where do I go from here, there is an implied there in the mix. I’m trying to figure out where there is.

Are owls auspicious or inauspicious?