12 Maxims & Lessons From 2024

A year I won't soon forget. (Derogatory.)

I should’ve known that 2024 was going to be rough. In the last days of 2023, we found out we were going to lose our beloved dog Dough at just three and a half years old. Chemo gave him a shot at a few more years but only earned us six months. It’s fine, we miss him and we love him and we love Crumb (our new puppy) but when the year starts on a hideous foot like that, it doesn’t bode well. A family dog died a couple of weeks later (and that wasn’t the last of our family dogs to go that year).

I’ll spare you all the deep specifics of the ups and downs. Some are obvious: my wife and I are having a baby and we have a new puppy that we adore (most of the time). The downs include everything from debt, loss of employment, hospital visits, and some pretty harsh betrayals by very old friends. Betrayal might be melodramatic, but it fits.

I got the idea for this entry from Francois La Rochefoucauld’s famous book, Maximes. Published in 1665, it’s essentially just his approach to life as told through a collection of small declarations. It’s not unlike a Twitter thread, if you want to think of it like that. I like this format. It works for me and it’s also my best attempt at an in and out list, the creation of which is a skill I just don’t have.

1. If you’re actively choosing to live in New York City, you must have some kind of selflessness about you. It may not be outwardly obvious, but it is a prerequisite for willingly sharing a city with 9,000,000 people. (But we could all be less selfish I guess.)

2. You can certainly be friends with people you work with, but remember, the friends you have outside of Slack have had your best interests at heart and will continue to do so. Few colleagues can boast the same. (Generally.)

3. We, as a society, should never have popularized self-flushing toilets. We have raised too many children to know that they literally don’t have to clean up their own crap. Somebody else will do it. I will die on this hill!

4. Few things are as important as they seem — people are so desperate to assign intense meaning to anything and everything these days that we’ve entered the deep end of everything. Not all things need depth. We need shallows.

5. Flossing your teeth is important but almost impossible. But, flossing in the shower somehow makes it easier, don’t ask me why. (I have a cavity IN a Wisdom Tooth right now though so what do I know?)

6. Nothing is in, nothing is out. There is no aspect of living in 2025 that isn’t cringe.

7. There’s nothing on a “New York Tik Tok” account you can’t find from Google.

8. Substack, despite what some people say, has no responsibility to be good, bad, or anything else. I’m unsure why people thought a platform that allows anybody and everybody to publish would be some kind of haven for intellectuals — but maybe they’ve never used the internet.

9. Gift guides are good. Begrudging people for making them is stupid. And I’ve said this before but gift guides are around us constantly, they’re just called marketing when it’s not the holidays.

10. 2024, however awful it was, was one of the best years of pop music in recent memory. The last time we had this kind of pop legacy was 2009 IMHO.

11. We, like, as a species, aren’t built to be as connected to each other as we are. I blame phones, but there are people you should just jettison from your life.

12. Trends exist as a concept of fashion merchandising. A better-dressed version of yourself may be informed about them, but could ignore them all together. Buy and wear what you love.

I’ve got a lot more thoughts on this year and what I’ve learned, but I’ve spent the last couple of weeks in a netherworld of comfort and relaxation. I hope you all have the 2025 you deserve.

Until next time,

JJ