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These last few weeks have been a little busy with both Christmas and New Year's taking up everyone's time. I'm sure for some there was the typical holiday chaos of travelling to and from, dealing with the struggles of commuting and getting to family. Enjoying the holidays full of great food and drinks, and company. Not to forget that the flu season kicked in, and seemingly everyone everywhere was catching Covid like it was nothing, myself and all of my family included. Throughout all of this, I don't feel like I really know what to write. The crypto market has been utterly insane as all kinds of companies are going under, being found to have traded with customer funds, and generally having exposure in the worst of places. Money is being lost everywhere as we essentially live in a recession. Not to forget the sad events happening within Ukraine and Russia at the moment. There's so much going on, but I strangely feel like I have very little to write about.

It recently snowed here for one evening, I roamed the streets knowing it would disappear by morning. A lot of my days as of late have been like this: walking for a bit, trying to get out and go to new places. Trying to effectively spend time knowing that time is passing faster and faster, all while keeping an eye on the frugal empire I have built which is oddly rocketing upward as of late. Who knew you could make 60% gains in a week during a bear market? Though things still feel very much uncertain. I'm not sleeping all that great lately, having a sleeping pattern I seem to be attempting to cling to. Sleeping around 4AM and waking up around 11AM, with an alarm that seems to be failing me as I hit 'Snooze' and go back to sleep. A bad habit I'm trying to fight. Though within the hours I'm awake I try to draw, focusing more on drawing and improving the few things I have managed to learn so far. Constant studies of anatomy, using pencils for shading to learn that anatomy and somewhat jump into realism. 

At the same time on my monitor can be found a split browser that shows a reference of whatever part of anatomy I'm drawing, as well as the TV show Cops. A show I remember watching when I was young that is suddenly a big guilty pleasure of mine. Though I only really half pay attention to it as I draw. In general I haven't had much interest in watching things. It has been a struggle to find things I do want to watch that seem interesting, a bit of burnout having spent so many days watching things seemingly just out of boredom. And fatigue in the shallow libraries of streaming services which seem to these days focus on cheap, politically driven content rather than engaging, unique stories. Funny how a show like Cops can interest me more, given the reality it presents to us. Even still, I face the struggles of not knowing what to write. Life has been very simple lately, even with all that's going on. 

I somewhat enjoy this pace at the moment, as I mentioned with everything going on. Everything feels so fast suddenly, the world seems to be shifting by the day; even when I walk in the streets I notice changes that came out of nowhere, a difference in how people look, move, and talk. That the past two years were not putting us on pause, but somehow hit fast-forward into some strange, cyberpunk-esque world where technology is increasing rapidly without us really even noticing. More reliance on it all, less connection visible between people, but more with devices. Towns around me becoming cities, big lights blasting photons into the sky and slowly devouring the beautiful views that space displayed. What was once a clear night sky is now met with a distant white glow in the night. A sounds of busy roads which were once quiet far away. I have always been a very observational person, but things seem to be changing faster than I can see. Large almost Americanised horrors via urbanisation are the most frequent observations as of late. More houses appearing everywhere. Less nature visible. More roads that seem more dense that an overweight person's arteries. 

All of which loop together to rows of Starbucks, Costa, various restaurants and franchises. I'm not really sure how to feel about it all. It almost feels as if things are growing so rapidly that the only logical conclusion is a sudden halt. A fall of Rome again. I'm sure many others feel this way as the world seems to be headed into such uncertain times. Where none of us really know what to expect, or to do with ourselves. The basic aspects of life around us grow in cost, but our salaries stagnate. The jobs seeming to be less easy to get, and few and far between as even companies reduce their headcounts to please shareholders. Though all of this doesn't really cause me any anxiety. If anything it causes curiosity. I *want* to know where things are heading. At what point do we humans reach our limit and stagnate? Or will it all continue to grow and advance with the blink of an eye. It feels as if tomorrow we'll all have artificial limbs and actual virtual reality to escape into. But it also feels as if such things are so far away. 

The last five years seem like a blur, but so strange. I don't feel older or as if I myself have changed much, though everything around me is different. People come and go. Objects disappear and appear. New colours fill the darkness of the night, and now we're entering another year as the pace increases. But yeah, I feel I only really have one question that sits within my mind, even as I attempt to relax and take things slowly: what's next?