As revealed in the tail end of my last post, 2025’s theme is “Swing.” This theme is certainly up there for odd naming, but it’s one that has me very excited. To break down swing, I’ll use two symbols, a baseball bat and a swing set. Both things swing, but in different ways.
You Gotta Swing the Bat
FLCL, or Fooly Cooly, is a long time comfort show of mine. At only six episodes, it’s a frequent rewatch for me. The show packed of wild ideas that can be interpreted for deeper meaning or simply cool things the creator likes. An episode I never appreciated much was one centered around baseball, as my primary association with baseball is being like 6 years old and crying a lot.
It wasn’t until a recent rewatch that I learned to love the episode, not for the baseball, but what playing meant for the main character, Nauta. To summarize his growth in the episode, he is afraid to swing for a pitch, as he believes he will never live up to expectations of an older brother who became a professional player in America – the show is an anime taking place in a nameless town in Japan. At the end of the episode, when a satalite is falling towards the city, he finally finds the confidence in himself to swing the bat – well at this point it’s a guitar, again it’s a wild show.
Thinking about this episode, I want to embody that growth. Look for opportunities to take the swing. I’ve been using my recent move to my apartment as an example. As soon as I found and liked the place, I quickly took the steps to get settled in. I don’t know what opportunities await me in the year ahead but know I’ll need to swing for the fences if I want to accomplish anything great.
Making Momentum
While there were definitely areas I didn’t accomplish as much as I’d hoped with “The Process,” I’m happy with how some major life aspects shaked out, particularly health and fitness. Coming into the new year, I wanted 2025’s theme to involve maintaining momentum in some areas. Not committing to keeping up the exact same pace, but at least holding on to some of the gains made throughout 2024.
Swing was already one of many possible themes I’d written down while brainstorming ideas, and then it hit me. The visual of a playground swing. The idea of building up momentum and then being able to coast for a while with much less effort. Once I had this visual in mind, I knew Swing was the theme.
I will use that metaphor to keep track of the various areas in my life. What things need momentum? What can carry out on it’s own for a while? What do I need to cut momentum to?
Better Bumpers
Another result of last year was that I found I need to create some better accountability systems to stay on track. To continue the use of recreation metaphors, I’ve been picturing the bumpers at a bowling alley. They won’t guarantee a strike, but at least the ball won’t get stuck in the gutter.
In the past, I had a weekly breakfast with friends that was great. It was a nice way to start off the week catching up, and at the end of the meal, we would set a goal to complete for the week. If someone didn’t complete that goal, they would have to pick up the bill.
At this time, I haven’t found a good substitute for that routine, but I have a much lower stakes alternative. At the beginning of the year, I started an email thread with my brother. I sent what I’m hoping to do in January. For example, exercise at least three times a week and write the two blog posts for yearly themes were ideas I had off the bat. When the month comes to an end, I’ll reply with what actually happened and what I’m hoping for February. This not only provides me with a way to share what I’m planning to do with a low stakes audience, but also provides me a log to look back on for what actually happened throughout the year. I’m sure I’m not alone when it comes to December and can’t remember half the things I did that year.
Targets
To wrap up this post, here are some of the areas I want to work on this year.
For one, I want to get back to writing. With two posts in the last month, I’d like to aim for at least a single post published per month. This is less than a quarter of what I used to write, but many times what I’ve regularly written the last couple of years.
Looking back to more things I used to do, another area I’ve fallen off recently is running. While I’ve done some short runs here and there, it’s looking like time for another marathon. Training for distance can be a lot of fun, but just very time consuming. During my last marathon, I wasn’t worried about a goal time. However, I’ve since lost my automatic qualifying time for the Chicago Marathon and would like to get that back. Luckily, while I originally planned on running Chicago this year, I accidentally missed the registration period anyway.
As for something that’s a little more on the fun side, I’ll continue to work on the various backlogs of games, movies and other entertainment that I made good progress on last year. It’s never something that will be “completed,” because I’ll want to experience new things all the time. At the end of the day, it’s a fun way to keep track of it all. I briefly mentioned it when first introducing the backlog idea from Daryl Talks Games, but the part I love the most is taking time to write down my thoughts on a piece of media shortly after experiencing it. This piece is what I find keeps the desire to continue the idea in the long run. I’ve never been great at public reviews like Goodreads or Letterboxd, but this place to write out whatever ideas come to mind with a piece is important.
Here’s to a new theme and a new year ahead of me. Thank you for reading.
Trying Out Before Buying In 