Last year—wow, that was bad, huh? Like, really bad. Like, politically drainingly, emotionally unmooringly, mentally exhaustingly, existentially disruptively Very Very Bad. And here you are, a human being with a brain and feelings and the anxieties of modern life, and it is a new year, but it only kinda feels like it, if it does at all, and you’re tired, and maybe a little drunk, and definitely sad but also probably pretty stimulated because you’re around people which can be good but also really overwhelming and you’re anxious about meaning anything, about your mission and purpose and direction in this world that is peeling apart into scaly rags like a snake that can’t regenerate its skin and shit, I’m just talking to myself, aren’t I?
Well, in case I’m not, there is good news for you, me and also other people: You don’t have to believe in yourself this year. No, really! You really don’t! Because Our Boy Kamina, of vaguely acclaimed and theoretically tongue-in-cheek but actually just dumb and bad and clichéd anime Gurren Lagann has some excellent advice for you in 2018:
That’s right. Don’t believe in yourself. Believe in the me that believes in you. Because we may not be able to believe in ourselves, but we can always believe in each other. (Don’t try to mix this with Descartes though—I promise it doesn’t work.)
Welcome to the next year of our lives, friends. It will be worse. But don’t believe in 2018. Believe in we who believe in you.
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