2009 Review
blogSo, it’s the end of another year and I am forced by convention and my own bloody inclinations to do some form of review of it.
The year started out with what I now recognise as acute anxiety. I became obsessed with the idea of living perfectly. I had a straitened way of living that worked marvellously well until about April, when alcohol and freelance projects meant that I no longer had time or energy to keep up the maintenance regimes (yoga, juice, exercise, blogging, photoblogging). Looking over the record of those blog entries, I am impressed by the verve of my writings, but it wasn’t sustainable.
The crash, when it happened, was massive. I heard, via a chap called Colin, about a performance artist called Tehching Hsieh whose art was about doing nothing. The idea of doing nothing became massively appealing to the extent that I decided it was the only thing to do. I became obsessed with the idea of not reading, of not consuming all the rubbish on the internet that makes people feel so scattered.
One thing that I did do that I thought was good was to review every week what my state was 10 areas of my life.
I became minimalist in the truest sense of doing one thing at a time.
I visited some nice places: Newcastle, Manchester, Edinburgh, Paris, Athens, Crete, Bilbao.
I got promoted at work.
Top Five Books I Read
The Art of Looking Sideways by Alan Fletcher
Out of Now by Tehching Hsieh
Things I have learned in my life so far by Stefan Sagmeister
Pursuit of Millennium by Norman Cohn
Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher
Top Five Films I Watched
M
Stalker
Antichrist
Groundhog Day
Synecdoche, New York