Closing the Year
Reflections & Intentions
"Man, sometimes it takes a long time to sound like yourself."
Miles Davis
This is my last note for the year, and it feels like a good moment to look back. Reflection has a way of revealing threads we didn’t notice while weaving, and as I trace them now, I see a few patterns that seem worth sharing.
Closing the Year
Reflections & Intentions
What I’ve Published
A Note for the New Year
My Notebooks
Reflections & Intentions
1
Writing this newsletter has become something very dear to me - a chance to share some of my favorite ideas, in my own way, and have them be met with such thoughtful attention. Thank you so much for reading.
2
With sixteen essays and a modest (but growing!) audience, I’ve revisited the simple and essential questions like: “What am I trying to do here?” and “What’s at the heart of this effort?”
While I would’ve loved a singular, all-encompassing answer, what I found instead are two intentions:
To create my ideal curriculum, and
To do so publicly, offering guidance and encouragement to anyone interested in learning alongside me.
3
I believe deeply in the need for reminders. My mind is a leaky place, prone to drift, and even my most important thoughts get lost in the busyness of existence. My hope is that by catching and expressing the ideas that I’ve found useful - as clearly and compellingly as I can - they’ll remain active in my own life. If others find them helpful too, all the better.
4
Guidance and encouragement are essential companions to growth:
Guidance is a compass. It doesn’t dictate the path but gently adjusts our direction, pointing to possibilities we may have missed. It’s the realization that we’re not as stuck as we think, that a slight shift in perception can reveal a new way forward. Like a good conversation or a timely quote, it doesn’t solve the puzzle for us - it simply reminds us that solutions exist.
Encouragement, meanwhile, is the wind at our back. It doesn’t ask whether we’re entirely ready or confident - it just nudges us to try. It’s the friend who puts a hand on our shoulder and says, “Go ahead, this is worth your effort. You can do this.” It’s not forceful; it’s steady and warm - a presence that makes us feel good about attempting something new.
Note the balance between them. Without guidance, we may feel adrift, unsure of how to take the next step; without encouragement, we might not take that step at all. Together, they’re an ideal partnership - a map and the motivation to follow it.
5
Up to now, I've played it a bit safe with you: refining ideas to fit neatly into tidy frames and editing them until they followed a clear progression. While I value simplicity and structure - they’re something of a mantra for me - what really excites me is the occasional “strange” read.
The writing I find energizing is the kind that defies easy description and feels like swimming in a thinker's notebook: a snippet of a conversation here, a letter to a friend there, a scribbled meditation on a private fear here again - each piece raw and distinct, tied together only by the hand that created them.
Next year, I'll share compositions that are a little more original and untamed. Some issues will be less of an essay and more of an exploded thesis - a series of fragments, reveries, impressionistic sketches, and bits of culture that inspire me. Whatever they lack in order and organization, they’ll make up for in energy and openness.1
A Work in Progress
What I’ve Published
Here is everything I’ve written since starting in August. If you have some downtime over the holidays, consider catching up on anything you might have missed. Our leisure hours offer us an opportunity to expand and develop - and I’ve done my best for the pieces to be timeless.
When I Was 3
A Note for the New Year
I’ve always loved a fresh start. There’s something quietly electric about a clean slate - the sense that, for a brief moment, anything is possible. The January 1st pages of my old notebooks are proof of it: bold intentions, rising ambitions, and the belief that I could remake myself entirely.
If that’s where you are now, milk it. Activation energy is rare, and it’s worth riding while it lasts. Channel it productively: get fit, get healthy, learn some new things, start a project, find peace, love more, grow, expand. But here’s one small word of wisdom: prioritize.
That limitless feeling - as thrilling as it is - will eventually meet the friction of daily life. And when it does, clarity becomes your greatest ally. For me, it’s two things: deepening my closest relationships and becoming an artist. That second one is a suitcase term (it holds a lot), but I know what it means for me.
I hope you enjoy the holidays, look forward to what comes next and always feel welcome you share your thoughts with me. If any piece feels especially useful or satisfying (or misses the mark), I'd love to hear from you. This is, after all, a shared path, and your feedback helps shape it.
Until next time,
Javier
My great-grandfather was a writer, and he left behind an example. Two of his books were titled Comentarios Mínimos (“Minimal Comments”) and Páginas Sueltas (“Unbound Pages”). Those titles alone feel like teachings. Minimal, unbound… freedom from what’s unnecessary… freedom from systems… in many ways, it’s the philosophy I aim to live: seeing clearly, speaking plainly, and always leaving room for movement.