It’s a strange feeling to see 2025 on the calendar, and it gets even stranger when you realize that it’s actually true. We’re in 2025.

Every year since 2018 has felt like a semi lucid dreamscape, where who I am as a person is continuously changing, all the while unable to be steadfast or grounded in the present. I still remember losing a dear friend in 2017 and becoming viciously depressed over it, and now a lifetime has passed since that fateful evening. Legitimately eight years has gone by, and what do I have to show for it?

My life isn’t markedly different, I’m just more alone. With no drive to reach out nor nurture the ever diminishing relationships that I do have.

I remember playing Black Ops 2 in 2013 on the daily, spending hours in-game either deep in a session of multiplayer or on some hours long quest in Zombies. That game was set in 2025, and now we’re actually there. And it’s no longer ten years ago either, but a child reared to puberty ago.

Nothing actually gives my life momentum, neither studies nor work, nor relationships that came and went. I’m still stuck in quicksand, just the more I struggle against it the quicker I sink. I’m practically still where I was in 2013. Sure, technology has developed somewhat, but I’m still spending my time researching topics, doing my own studies, thinking and fantasizing about some alternative reality, too stuck, too afraid or too reduced to nothing to engage with the real world in any meaningful capacity.

Is it anxiety or just that I’m hopelessly submissive in the face of the void?

Back then, in 2013, I would spend my time studying concepts from Black Ops 2. Easter Eggs, alternative theories, building hype for the next DLC. Watching endless YouTube videos, thinking broadly about society and my own impact on it. And neglecting all my friends, disappearing into solitude never to be seen again, ghosting everyone. Not much has changed since then. The game has been swapped continuously over the years, but I’m still just a chalice bereft of meaning. Filled to the brim with stagnant water, useless information, unnecessary facts and factoids.

But the worst part about it all is the fact that I’m quite content. Am I though? Or is it just that I’m pushing away all that would drive another individual to better themselves? Have I finally neglected myself and in turn ghosted my own ego?

2025 is a wondrous year. A year where a lot will happen, either by force or by will. I’m going to try to make it worthwhile, and finally drive a wedge between who I was and who I am and have always been. I have nothing to be afraid of, because in the end I have no one I’m responsible to or for. No one cares enough, and I have no one to lose. Why not make the most of this freedom to be and do whatever I want?

2025, I will try.