Next Year Will Be Different Though

I spent an hour this morning watching the sun rise.

I woke up early because cats don't care about holidays and sleeping in.They care about our routine.

So we run our cycle where I try to operate cans, and spoons and the kettle for coffee without making a mess, half awake fumbling in the dark.

They scarf down their meal and disappear into some cozy corner of the house. I make my pour over, open the curtains, sit on our decorative but uncomfortable couch, and enjoy my first few sips of coffee... watching the morning light creep across the living room floor as the skies turn from inky black, to orange, to pink and blue.

I have a used book I recently bought by my side, a promise that I'll read more next year.

But it's not the weathered pages of Thus Spoke Zarathustra I'm reading. It's a few thousand words of slop from LinkedIn, and Substack. Tired cliches and obviously AI generated nonsense that gives nothing, but takes so much.

Not takes. Let's be real.

I've willingly given over what it wants.

I know better.

I coach my clients on this...

So why am I scrolling yet again on this tiny device that just makes me feel dizzy and hollow and a kind of low level dread/grief that this is the pinnical of human progress...?

Because I too am a survivor of the dead Internet. I too dig for treasure and dopamine. It's ok though, "I do it for my business".

My marketing coach tells me to engage more...to post what we've agreed upon as my content pillars.

She's right, but I find myself thumbing past post after post that leaves me feeling numb. AI slop comments mirroring AI slop posts, wasting more of my time and sapping my energy.

I feel exhausted before I've found something worth commenting on, let alone that I could add value to.

I've scrolled past posts celebrating billionaires, narcissists, annoyingly addictive time lapse videos, or another GRWM clip with a voice over sharing tips for reach, tired paradigms, greed, fear mongering, encouraging hustle and not enoughness before the New Year, while there's still time...

But we're out of time.

We have been for a while.

The year is over.

How much of it did we invest in our own little cycles of consumption?

How much did we procrastinate on unread books, or dreams delayed until...?

Have we been satiated?

Are we not entertained?

Can we ever be when the source is a feed designed to extract our life force and attention?

It's morning on New Years Eve.

The sun has crested the tree line, shining on where we've given up our sovereignty to systems of extraction.

But this isn't news.

We knew it when we accepted the TOS.

We feel it as our thumb flicks past another post celebrating AI. We sense it as we scroll for inspiration that maybe next year will be different...or just for the lols.

Next year we will write that book or launch that program, or go outside more... but first...just one more scroll.

Next year will be different though.

See you in 2026 Rebels.

Be Rebellious!

In Solidarity ✊