What 2024 Taught Me About Love, Life, And Resilience

As 2024 comes to a close, I’m reflecting on a year that has been both transformative and bittersweet. There were moments of joy, significant milestones, and profound challenges. In the spirit of honesty and gratitude, I want to share some of the most impactful experiences that shaped this year.

I’ve realized that my resilience and inner strength have carried me through an extraordinary array of experiences—ones that could have easily broken others. From standing tall against society’s judgments to giving Amelia my unwavering support, I’ve shown a level of fortitude that not everyone possesses. What’s most remarkable to me is that this strength feels so much a part of me that I often keep moving forward without even pausing to recognize it.

Sometimes, I don’t fully see the weight of everything I’ve faced and conquered, probably because I hold myself to such high standards and just keep pushing through. But reflecting on it, I realize that strength isn’t only about surviving hardship—it’s about doing so with purpose and authenticity. And I know I embody that every single day.

I have been a misfit my entire life—a restless soul, queer, curious, neurodivergent, and full of secrets, with an insatiable curiosity about the intricate mechanics of the world. Yet, time and again, my thirst for understanding was met with the cold indifference of a modern educational system more intent on conformity than fostering intellectual exploration. Of all the lessons I took away from my high school years, one stands out above the rest: my art teacher who urged me to reflect upon my life through a philosophical lens at least once a year. It means stepping back and examine my life’s trajectory with introspective clarity—a rare gift of wisdom in an otherwise stifling environment.

Now on the brink of what feels like another cataclysmic societal failure—the reelection of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States—I’m compelled to revisit that teacher’s counsel. The collective memory of his first term seems to have dissipated, leaving the nation poised to repeat its mistakes. This moment brings to mind the enduring relevance of the anti-intellectualism lamented by great thinkers such as Arnold Toynbee and Carl Sagan. Toynbee warned of civilizations collapsing under the weight of their own ignorance, while Sagan foresaw the dangers of a populace unable—or unwilling—to distinguish between critical thought and convenient lies.

The ugly resurgence of fascism in the United States, particularly the targeting of transgender individuals, is deeply unsettling. Although I was assigned female at birth and have always identified as female, being born intersex means I’m often misunderstood—sometimes even as transgender. This bias, coupled with a lack of common knowledge about intersex conditions, has made navigating the world increasingly exhausting for me.

This year, I felt an overwhelming sense of nostalgia for the 1990s. That decade straddled the analog world and the nascent digital age. It was a time of tangible, meaningful connection before technology became all-consuming. There was an innocence to those years, with plenty of wonder and genuine connection in how we communicated and lived. With each passing year, that era feels ever more like a fleeting memory I may never fully recapture, yet the essence of those yesteryears continues to inspire me.

This intersection of personal reflection and societal crisis reminds me of the precarious balance between enlightenment and decline. As the echoes of history grow louder, we must remind ourselves of the fragility of progress and the responsibility of those who still cherish curiosity, reason, and truth to preserve those valuable assets against ever angrier tides of willful ignorance. Right now, my art teacher’s words ring more profoundly than ever. Taking an annual inventory of the soul may be the first step toward enduring wisdom, not just for us as individuals but for nations as well.

This year, I took the significant step of publicly acknowledging that I am neurodivergent—a realization and admission that has been a long time coming. My neurodivergence shapes the way I perceive the world, granting me a unusually spherical perspective. Instead of seeing life in linear or binary terms, I find myself perpetually looking beyond my own vantage point, contemplating the interplay of countless perspectives and the intricate systems that interconnect to create the fabric of our daily experiences.

My intellect compels me to challenge conventional modes of thinking. This often requires me to confront deeply ingrained cognitive biases and the pervasive human discomfort with ambiguity. Many people, particularly in Western societies, cling to reductive, black-and-white frameworks as a way to simplify their worldview, and reinforce familiar norms. These cultural tendencies can make it difficult to embrace the complexity and nuance inherent in alternative perspectives. However, as I’m driven by a relentless curiosity to question, it’s second nature for me to examine the intersections of ideas, and to uncover the often-overlooked subtleties that enrich our understanding of the world.

By embracing my neurodivergence, I’ve liberated myself from an unproductive mental purgatory. Not only do I now allow myself to see the world through a lens of interconnected possibilities but also in outright rejecting the confines of rigid, binary thinking. Yes, it’s a difficult and uncertain path that challenges societal norms but ultimately it leads to a deeper, more expansive comprehension of human experience. After all, as I see it, life, the universe, and everything in it are interconnected—part of a larger, multidimensional whole that transcends any single perspective.

In sixth grade, I distinctly remember a lesson on material densities, where we were taught to classify substances as transparent, translucent, or opaque. While the lesson was straightforward, my curiosity led me to think beyond these basic categories. I raised my hand and asked about reflective, photo-luminescent, and selectively translucent materials. I was wondering why the discussion didn’t encompass these more complex and fascinating properties. Instead of engaging with my question, though, the teacher dismissed me outright, calling me an idiot.

The situation escalated quickly—I was sent to the principal’s office, where I was told that I had no right to ask such a question. The principal demanded to know my motivation for asking, to which I honestly answered: I was genuinely curious about the electromagnetic spectrum and couldn’t understand why we were limiting the discussion to such rudimentary examples.

What followed was both bewildering and disheartening—I was suspended for two weeks. For asking a question. For being curious. At the time, it felt like an unjust punishment for something that came naturally to me: questioning the boundaries of what I was being taught and seeking a deeper understanding.

During my suspension, I turned the energy from my frustration into exploratory drive. With no classroom environment or taskmaster to stifle me, I spent my time experimenting at home, particularly with electromagnetic devices. In one experiment, I placed a coil connected to a small light bulb inside a mason jar, while another coil, connected to a DC power source, sat outside the jar. To my amazement, as I brought the two coils into proximity, the bulb inside the jar lit up, despite the glass barrier. Unwittingly, I’d stumbled upon a primitive demonstration of electromagnetic induction—the principle that would later become the foundation for wireless charging technology.

Looking back, such irony isn’t lost on me. The very curiosity that got me labeled as disruptive and led to my suspension was the same curiosity that allowed me to independently explore a concept with practical and far-reaching applications. This experience taught me about the unfortunate and severe limits of traditional education and the absolute importance of pursuing knowledge, even when the system discourages it. It was also an early sign that my path would never conform to conventional expectations. This realization has shaped my approach to learning and innovation ever since.

There was another pivotal moment from my ninth-grade pre-algebra class. I vividly recall my math teacher introducing fundamental mathematical concepts like Cartesian coordinates, with their familiar x and y axes, and the basics of graphing. While others seemed content with the two-dimensional framework being presented, I couldn’t help but question its limitations. My mind naturally wandered into three-dimensional space, and I asked about concepts like the normal (n) and tangential (t) components, which seemed to me a logical extension of the discussion.

Rather than engaging with my curiosity or exploring the broader implications of my question, the teacher appeared unprepared—or perhaps unwilling—to deviate from the planned lesson. The response was swift and definitive: I was unceremoniously kicked out of class. For the remainder of the year, my relationship with that teacher deteriorated. Bored and disconnected from material that failed to challenge me, I ultimately earned a D in the class. The teacher labeled me as, “unreachable”, a designation that seemed less a reflection of my capabilities and more an indictment of a system that struggles to accommodate unconventional thinkers.

Looking back, this experience highlights the unfortunate reality that traditional educational models often prioritize conformity over intellectual exploration. My question wasn’t an attempt to derail the lesson but rather an effort to connect the material to the broader, multidimensional way in which I naturally view the world. Instead of fostering curiosity, I was penalized for thinking outside the confines of the prescribed curriculum. It’s a pattern I’ve seen time and again—proof that the rigidity of certain systems often stifles the very creativity and intellectual depth they claim to nurture.

During my senior year of high school, I found myself grappling with questions that seemed to stretch beyond the boundaries of the geometry classroom. It would be an incident that led to failing the entire course. But like before, this result wasn’t due to apathy or misunderstanding. Yet again, it was a stern dismissal by educators, stemming from my relentless curiosity and my refusal to accept abstract concepts without questioning their connection to reality. While the curriculum focused on the properties of points, lines, line segments, and rays, my mind wandered toward the deeper implications of these ideas. I couldn’t help but ask: How do these perfect constructs hold up in the physical universe? Are they truly perfect, or are they just approximations of something more elusive?

I was fascinated by the notion that a line is defined as extending infinitely in both directions—a concept that seems impossible to verify in a universe bound by space and time. Similarly, rays, which are said to extend infinitely in one direction, seemed equally problematic. I asked questions about their perfection: Can such constructs exist in a universe governed by entropy, decay, and the ever-changing forces of nature? Do these mathematical ideals challenge the limits of human understanding, or is there a point at which our models reach the edge of what can be known—where they simply cannot describe the true nature of the universe?

I was questioning not just the geometry itself but the philosophical underpinnings of how we use mathematical abstractions to make sense of a world that is anything but abstract. These queries weren’t meant to derail the class or to reject the subject matter. On the contrary, they reflected my desire to engage deeply with it. However, my questions were met with hostility, likely because they ventured too far outside the narrow scope of the lesson plan. The teacher seemed unprepared—or perhaps unwilling—to consider these implications. So, my persistence was perceived as yet another disruption rather than true intellectual curiosity.

Looking back, my failing grade in geometry class feels like a failure of the system to nurture inquiry rather than a failure of my understanding. I wasn’t content to memorize formulas, or accept axioms without contemplating their relevance to the dynamic and imperfect universe we inhabit. My questions, though unwelcome in that classroom, were an attempt to reconcile the elegant simplicity of mathematical models with the messy complexity of reality. They were also my early exploration of the limits of general human understanding: Is there a point where our abstractions break down, where the universe defies the neat categories we create to understand it?

That year, I also earned a D in English for taking an unconventional approach to analyzing The Great Gatsby. While the rest of the class engaged in standard discussions about character flaws, rumored desires, and surface-level interpretations of the text, I chose a different path—one that, to me, felt far more engaging and intellectually rewarding. I created a detective-style chart, mapping out the intricate web of relationships, motivations, and plot twists as though I were unraveling a mystery.

To me, the novel felt like a puzzle begging to be solved, with its layers of deception, hidden motivations, and complex interpersonal dynamics. My chart visually connected the dots, illustrating how each character’s actions and desires influenced the overarching story. I treated Gatsby’s dream, Daisy’s indecision, Tom’s infidelity, and Nick’s perspective as key clues in a larger investigation of human ambition, and moral decay. It was an exercise in character arc visualization, laying it out in a form that transcended simple classroom debates.

Unfortunately, my teacher didn’t share my enthusiasm for this creative method. Instead of appreciating my effort to dig deeper and re-imagine the narrative through a unique lens, they dismissed it as irrelevant or inappropriate for the assignment. My attempt to engage with the text in a way that felt meaningful to me was met not with encouragement, but with disapproval. In their eyes, my approach failed to fit within the traditional framework of literary analysis, and my grade reflected that judgment.

Looking back, the D wasn’t just a mark on a report card; it was a reminder of how rigid academic systems often stifle creativity and unconventional thinking. My detective-style chart may not have been what the teacher expected, but it authentically expressed how I understood the story—a dynamic exploration of relationships, motivations, and the human condition. Perhaps if my work had been viewed with an open mind, it might have sparked deeper conversations about how literature can be interpreted in ways that go beyond the textbook. Instead, it became another example of how innovation can be misinterpreted as defiance in environments that prioritize conformity over originality.

Despite failing both math and chemistry in my senior year, I still walked with my graduating class in 1998—though I never received an official diploma. At the time, it felt like an incomplete ending to a chapter that, truthfully, I had already outgrown. Looking back now, I realize it doesn’t hold much significance in the larger story of my life. By the time I was navigating the pitfalls of senior year, I had already proven to myself—and perhaps to others—that my academic potential extended well beyond the confines of high school.

The summer between my junior and senior years, I had attended college courses, immersing myself in computer programming and earning a solid B in C++. At 17, I was already exploring higher-level concepts in computing, a field far more aligned with my interests and intellectual curiosity than the rote memorization of periodic tables or the mechanical repetition of math problems.

While high school clung to rigid structures and conventional expectations, the college classroom offered a glimpse of what education could be—flexible, challenging, and intellectually stimulating. It was a revelation, one that underscored how little the traditional metrics of high school success truly measured my capabilities.

The absence of a diploma, though technically a missing milestone, never felt like a limitation. The experience taught me something far more valuable: education isn’t confined to the walls of a classroom, nor is it measured by standardized benchmarks or arbitrary grades. My early exposure to college showed me that learning is a lifelong process, one that thrives on curiosity, creativity, and the willingness to challenge the status quo. While high school may not have recognized my worth, I had already begun carving a path that was uniquely my own—one that valued intellectual growth over conformity.

In hindsight, those failures weren’t the end of anything but rather the beginning of my realization that success isn’t defined by diplomas or traditional milestones. We must instead define ourselves by our individual ability to adapt, to pursue knowledge for its own sake, and to recognize that the structures meant to guide us sometimes fail to see the bigger picture. For me, that bigger picture was already coming into focus, even as I left high school behind.

Reflecting on my high school experience, I’ve come to realize that none of it truly matters in the grand scheme of things. Despite the challenges and setbacks, I still went on to attend college—only to find so much of it was little more than high school dressed in the trappings of privilege and prestige. The institutional systems felt the same: rigid, uninspiring, and resistant to those who think differently. Yet, none of that stopped me. I pursued a career in the fire service, climbed the ranks through hard work and determination, and ultimately retired as a Lieutenant-Specialist, having carved out a path that defied conventional expectations.

I’ve lived a life far removed from the ordinary. I never had children, and while that path wasn’t part of my story, it hasn’t left me with regret. The past feels to me like a corridor of concrete walls—a series of unyielding events that I survived rather than cherished. Until now, I’ve lived with reckless abandon, hurtling through life at a relentless pace. I lived fast, bled slow, and rarely paused long enough to truly appreciate or savor the beauty, and wonder, of existence.

As I look ahead, I find myself wanting something different. I’ve told my wife, Amelia, that 2025 will be the year I finally slow down. I want to see more, take in new experiences, and capture the world through my lens. Photography, writing, and a deeper connection to people who accept and appreciate my differences will take precedence. I want to write more—especially about love, a subject my father always scolded me for exploring. To him, love was nothing more than an illusion, but I know better. Love exists, and it deserves to be written about, as it is one of the greatest joys of life. It’s a theme that has defined so much of who I am, and it will continue to shape the work I create.

This new chapter will bring substantial changes to my life, and these changes will naturally extend to my website. Gone will be rigid posting schedules and any expectation to churn out content on a timetable. Starting January 1, 2025, I will share whatever is on my mind, whenever I feel the urge to do so. My mind, like the universe itself, is in perpetual flux, and I’ve come to understand that life cannot be neatly quantified, cataloged, or reduced to immutable points. It often defies human comprehension, and for too long, I’ve subscribed to the notion that it can be definitively measured, and defined.

Moving forward, I want to embrace the chaos and beauty of life’s unpredictability. My writing, my photography, and my connections will reflect that. The universe is vast, enigmatic, and ever-changing—and so am I. It’s time to slow down and truly live, not just survive.

Colophon
The image featured in this piece is a photograph of my childhood desk engulfed in flames, captured on my farm in Vermont.

Asides
It’s The Small Everyday Moments That Define Us | We Simplify Our Journey To Make It Understandable | Reflections On Love, Growth, And The Irony Of Fate | Autumn Reflections: The Art Teacher Who Taught Me To Question Everything | In Autumn, It Is Love That Lingers In The End | In Another Set Of Chances I’d Take The Ones I’ve Missed | I Used To Write In Riddles And I Used To Write In Rhymes | Summer Comes For Everyone | 6th Grade And Other Mishaps | They Came And Wrote Things Down On Paper