I wrote this whilst I listened to the tunes that defined 2013 for me.

What did I learn this year?

1. I lost faith in myself. I am trying to find it again. Starting with my being.
2. It is my faith in others that will enable me to recover my faith in myself. I need to understand how to earn faith in myself, reinforced by other’s faith in me.
3. I feel like all I did in 2013 was survive. I learned that it is possible to survive. It is tiring to survive. But it is possible.
4. There are some amazing people in my life, whose belief in me is greater than my self-doubt.
5. Fuck hope. Remember courage.
6. I can be a moody bastard. I apologise to you if you have suffered as a result. Please know that I am working on it.
7. I will never abandon my 8 year old. As a result I will never abandon you. This is the truth that they could never see/hear.
8. The University is broken. Irrevocably. Marketised. Privatised. Technologised. Entrepreneured. Out of the public sphere.
9. The options are to say no, and to resist, and to push back, and to call people out, and to do so in solidarity. The options are to do these things collectively, using trades unions and pop-ups unions and strikes and protests and demonstrations and insurrections and refusals, in public spaces/times.
10. The options are also to prepare for exodus from capital. To celebrate use value and not exchange value. For open and public association and solidarity, against private, indentured lives.
11. To exodus is to pay down your debts, to learn some new, tradable skills, to access communal tools, to know and love/earn faith in your neighbours.
12. I need/want/hope to be more involved in the Social Science Centre. Co-operation is the thing.
13. My alienation is now at issue. How do I overcome my alienation from my labour, the products of my labour, my self/humanity and other people? There is something here about faith, courage, tolerance, and solidarity.
14. I wonder whether it is possible to liberate academic labour from the living death of capitalist work? Is it possible to find spaces to liberate and repatriate knowledge, ways of knowing, organising principles, before they are commodified/enclosed out of our reach?
15. I am increasingly pessimistic that society has the will to overcome the triple crunch of climate change, peak oil/resource availability, and this secular crisis of capitalism. It is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is the end of capitalism. See 11.
16. I am increasingly convinced that the academic only matters as activist. See 13.
17. What is to be done? Always.