Another year, another cycle completed.

A time of various celebrations has concluded and in its spirit, I would like to wish you all a Happy New Year 2026. May it be one where you find success and good fortune... Or at least a respite from various misery.
End of the year is also the time of summaries and resolutions. The quiet, dark days of January that follow invite some moments of reminiscence. Those ruminations form a long stream of thoughts, tiresome to the ordinary eye. Should you, dear viewer, have no time nor interest in such, simply take from it my wishes of many happy moments and fulfilling milestones.
Hold fast, since the seas of life are rough.


For the bored and the curious among you... Feel free to stay. It will be a recollection of thoughts provoked by various events, some of them more personal, some less.

2025... What a year it was. A year of some great contradictions.

In some ways, which a more scientifically inclined mind would call metrics, it has been a good one to me, personally. For the entire year, I have been living in a much more comfortable apartment than in 2024, with a stable job situation, slight growth of income and still decent health, all things considered. I have been more professionally involved in tasks that leverage my skills better while giving me a lot of freedom, at times even genuinely enjoying what I do to afford living. I have visited friends and been visited by them, always considering it a good time and a break from the weekly routines. My weekend board game group remained active, still serving as a nice opportunity to keep seeing people in person. Sure, the world had become more turbulent, but it never seemed to affect me directly. I even luckily dodged the price hikes of computer hardware, building a new PC at the start of 2025. Highlights of the year, such as attending Eurofurence, didn't let me down, delivering an awesome and memorable experience, just like every other time I took part in it. My family has been through some hurdles, but there is no distress to speak of and my relations with them have remained good.

Given all those personal good news, it might sound surprising that when asked to describe 2025, I would label it as the Year of Decay.

The reason? Death of hope. Death of faith in the future. An ongoing decay of human relations, ever-progressing at a languid, yet merciless pace.
I know I made it sound like some big claims, but... That's how I feel. It's been a rough year for many. Many I know experienced serious setbacks, challenges, misery or even simply overall existential anxiety.
The parts of life that felt fair no longer feel fair. Stable turned into uncertain. Reliable - into flaky. Genuine - into superficial. Honest - into insincere.
And, most of all - energetic and driven... Into terminally tired.

Many of our worries are spurred by the world at large, fueled by the endless news cycles. Cycles we cannot avoid, as even if we steered clear of television, radio and news sites, they would get to us through memes and conversations. Things that often can be quite dangerous to be completely ignorant of as well, blissful as it would be. I count geopolitics, sociology and economics among interests of mine... To the detriment of my mental wellbeing sometimes. I like to describe it with the quote: "For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief." (A Bible quote. How ironic. I blame Assassin's Creed 1.) Things just simply... Aren't looking good. The cosmopolitan dreams of united humanity working together never felt more distant in my life since I've been capable to even think about it. Nowadays, they could even be called delusional... Maybe rightly so. War and petty tribalism are back on the menu, giving the younger generations (Millennials such as myself and Gen Z) a brilliant opportunity to relive the worst Cold War fears of their parents and grandparents. The globally interconnected nature of our friend circles, especially in the furry community, often exposes us to first-hand accounts of the pain caused by what used to be distant news from distant lands.

I will try to avoid the pitfall of going too deep into what in particular went wrong in 2025 or even far before it, for this journal is not about the specifics. It is about their result - an utter sense of disillusionment and lack of faith in any kind of leadership I see among people of my age and younger. We are akin to unwilling passengers of a ship commandeered by unworthy captains and officers, who stand for nothing, believe in nothing and seem to be motivated only by either insatiable, short-sighted greed or delusions of grandeur and megalomania. The unshakable feeling that those in the driver seats, who were expected to be driven by duty and responsibility, play the world like their own personal game of Civilization or some kind of Business Tycoon, depending on who they are. The economy feels like a bad joke, with the younger generations generally aware of how much of a lie "hard work pays off" has become, making people play toxic "investment" games instead of working in faint hopes of getting ahead, catching the fleeing train of opportunity, financial security and ownership. I surely don't envy those who had to suffer an encounter with the 2025 job markets, having heard much of their grief. Unfortunately, there would be entire paragraphs to write about everything else that is NOT healthy about the economic reality of the past year, but this is not necessary for the point that I'm trying to make.

That point is... This is the context in which we were trying to put together our personal lives.
Anxious, overworked, isolated. One could think that we would find solace in our friends but many people I asked gave me the same answer - their friends were growing distant. Both IRL and in online spaces. In 2025, we really somehow made the pandemic year of 2020 look sociable and cheerful with all its VC hangouts, party games like Among Us and Jackbox and so on. Or maybe it's just me and my nostalgia speaking... I don't know. But I can't be the only one. Even my parents and other people from their generation don't seem to socialize nearly as actively as years ago. Once busy places become silent, at least in terms of anything meaningful past the pleasantries of "good morning", "goodnight" and an occasional flood of emotes and stickers.

It just feels like we have quietly given up.
Given up to the eternal, vague feeling of "tiredness". Too tired to poke, too tired to maintain a conversation. I admit, I'm not without blame. I lost friendships that once felt close due to neglect of my own, but I also lost many due to some sudden, sharp decline of interest that I never figured out. Did I do something wrong? Is it just how things are? ADHD? Depression? Who knows. I clearly don't. I know the mantra of leading by example. I tried. But then again... It felt like I lost any social edge I might have once had. I remain seemingly likeable, but other than holding a respectably high opinion among others or frequent platitudes like "handsome" thrown at me or my dragon sona, there isn't much more to it. Any personal charm I perhaps once had seems to be gone. Is it me being dull or perhaps something else... That's another open question. Some of my lost friendships of the past hurt me more than I'd usually like to admit. They left behind a lack of faith in any lasting relations, not to mention completely forfeiting hope of ever having any more involved relationship. I reach out, I talk a bit... But when I don't feel any interest or energy coming back to me, I'm quick to get discouraged. Too quick? Perhaps. I'm just at a loss in terms of where to look for a meaningful connection. One where both parties share a similar level of investment and matching personalities. Quite a few I spoke to find it equally futile and frankly, frustrating.

If by any chance, you are one of those who feel like I have forgotten about them, do let me know about it. Sometimes we learn from our mistakes... Or at least try.

The last thought of those end-of-year ruminations has to do with the passage of time.
This year, I have turned 30. It passed without much fanfare, in essence being just an arbitrary decimal number. Yet it still made me aware of the ticking clock. By many it is considered a milestone, and milestones are a time of summarizing one's achievements. Especially given that some things only get harder over time. I managed to build a semblance of stability and to pull my own weight, but past that, I had little to show for the time spent. I can already sense my body and mind being past their peak, demanding more care and attention to my lifestyle, lest I ruin the upcoming decades for myself. I certainly feel like I missed out on many, many things. I am prone to nostalgia and this year provided many opportunities to pull my mind towards it. With the death of the last of my grandparents in May, as well as some other deaths of elderly relatives, I could vividly experience some chapters of my life closing for good. It felt slightly eerie to pace around the empty homes where so many of my childhood memories came from, only to acknowledge those as decisively sealed in the past, never to return. I walked the streets of my home town to see it in abject decline, slowly bleeding out from lack of opportunity. Seemingly of no consequence to my own life at the moment, yet it was a sorry sight that did touch me, in a way.
In 2025, I have also visited Norway, in particular its rather sparsely populated fjord region around Ålesund. The thing that struck me the most about this trip was the impression of a certain kind of peace I felt there. Peace that existed without squalor, in spite of the rhythm of modern civilization. A place that didn't feel like a dog-eat-dog world. I hope places like this will remain after the idiots and villains of the world are done with us. On a wind-swept island open to the ocean, I experienced a rare feeling of things being like they should have been. A cozy, deep sense of Order.

In the end, 2025 felt like another year of "business as usual", with even less care, critical thinking or moral backbones all around. Some improvements in comfort of living, soured by the withering connections with others and a slow death of the soul. Having a crisis of purpose is apparently nothing new in this day and age, but who can blame us when the future more than a year ahead is just a tumultuous storm of uncertainties. I know it was hard for me to even get myself to care about my health when I have seen virtually no benefit in living long with my current mindset. So, one of my most sincere wishes to you for 2026 (which starts with a bang with another war) is to find that thing in your life that will be your North Star, a guiding force all other plans and goals align around. Without such, we are simply adrift, living through the force of habit.

To end it on a more positive note, if you feel like you have enough energy to spare to be one of those who work to stem the decay, it can be quite simple. Acknowledge others as individuals. Don't tell them that you care, don't virtually cuddle them or tell them how great they are. Show them that care through interest in their stories, through listening about what they're going through, through showing enthusiasm in spending time together, through a curiosity to get to know them better, deeper, as people. We have little to say about the historical context we live in, but at least we can cure others from that numbness, that eternal tiredness, through a little bit of true care and being a calm, reliable presence in their lives.

Onwards to 2026, folks. It can still be better for us if we find the strength not to give up. If any of you feel like the things I spoke about resonated with you, I'll be glad if you let me know by commenting or otherwise.