Hey… Happy belated New Year. Oof, what a start. While I admit that I wasn’t particularly sad to see 2024 go, I welcome 2025 with all the enthusiasm of an impending dental appointment. Yes, I’m taking care of my teeth the way I’m supposed to. Yes, I’m a healthy boy who makes good choices.

So why am I dreading it so much and would rather do literally anything else?

In the case of 2025, there are obvious reasons.

A slew of natural and man made disasters that show no signs of abating.

An unprecedented (but likely deserved) political nightmare spearheaded by an almost perfect archetype of everything I find grotesque and abhorrent in humanity, and the near personification of why I can never believe that homo sapien is anything but an evolutionary dead end hopefully nearing its terminus.

And not to diminish either of these in scope, but perhaps most pressingly, for the second time this year I have somehow managed to get poop on my hand while wiping. And with roughly 49 years of wiping under my belt, I feel that just shouldn’t happen. Ever. Compounding this, I also miraculously peed all over my leg and pants the other day in a bizarre toilet mishap. To say this marks an unwelcome and unsettling trend in potty habits is gross understatement and I admit, I am terrified of the future.

The good news, however, is that I did blindly choose the long spoon for my coffee this morning. And in my own nonsense mythology, that’s always a good portent.

Last year’s resolution was “MOVE.” And while I managed that on some levels… went to Spain, found some new roads to ride, and managed a trip or two in the van… I also failed miserably. Not only am I still in Greensboro, but I did NONE of the things I’d hoped with the shop. Put on no workshops. No group rides. No presentations. No marketing emails. No videos. No podcasts. Same with the home. No kitchen remodel. No permaculture revolution. No cute gentrification lights strung over our deck. No fixing the world’s worst caulk job left over from when the house was a rental.

No NOTHING. Just more banal day to day insanity. (Or is it just more insane day to day banality?)

This year… my resolution is… (drum roll)

MAKE MONEY.

Ha! Just kidding. God, wouldn’t that be something. (sigh…)

No. This year’s resolution is a bit long, a bit esoteric, but also very simple:

LEAVE THINGS BETTER THAN I FOUND IT.

Often, when I’m out riding in the country, I’ll observe quite a few signs vehemently declaring a property as “private.” And often, the property in question is little more than a modest house or trailer in a state of decay, surrounded by… I’ll say it… trash. Discarded appliances. Furniture. Mowers. Cars. I have many opinions about many things, and can be as judgy an @sshole as anyone else. But mostly what properties like that make me ponder is the entire concept of “property” and what it means to “own” something.

I think about Aldo Leopold often. Specifically about his “Land Ethic” posited in Sand County Almanac.

Succintly,

“A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”

This is a far cry from the relationship most people seem to have with the properties they inhabit. There’s more a “this is my land, and I’ll do what I want with it” ethos than a “I am but a humble steward of this land that has existed and will exist long beyond my meager lifespan, and I will keep and serve it in the ways it deserves.”

All of it marked by an overarching tenor of panic and fear… A sign reading “Smile. You’re on camera,” standing sentinel over a crumbling trailer. As if everyone was clamoring for a piece of that action.

I’m as guilty as anyone in my hoarding and neglect. Behind the shop I have random piles of stuff. Pallets for theoretical building projects. Old signs I will likely never reuse. Rotting stacks of wood. Empty buckets full of leaves and rain water. A grill I have no memory of. At my home I have small copses of potted plants in the front yard, all still waiting to find their place in the ground after almost a year. More piles of pallets and wood for more non-projects.

(What? You think PURGE isn’t also one of my new years resolutions?)

But it’s about more than just keeping a tidy space. There’s no land ethic in the barren, hideous, austerity of most modern affluent developments either. Those tidy bizarre facades of brick, vinyl, and stone, manicured and mulched beds, stinky bradford pears and overly-pruned crepe myrtles.

It’s about actively improving a space in a way that isn’t self-serving.

But even beyond the physical, tangible simplicity of leaving a space better than you found it, there’s a bigger picture. Of improving an entire atmosphere. And I think about this often, especially as it relates to the shop.

I am, admittedly, very antisocial. Very. And I am, admittedly, very misanthropic. Very. With an extremely bleak opinion of humanity, its form and function. But I would still like to leave everybody who comes in the shop better than I found them. Meaning that I want everyone who walks out my door to have had a positive experience that sets the tone for everything that happens afterward.

Among the many pithy phrases that bang around in my head, (“Property Is Theft.” “Kill the Cool.” “Forget Your Life.”) “Kindness Costs Nothing” is a frequent visitor. It’s borderline nonsense, because let’s be real, kindness can actually be quite costly at times… breaking off entire chunks of your soul to extend to people who possibly do not deserve it. But I still believe it. And there is a vast difference between kindness and submission. Kindness can, in fact, be a weapon. So… it’s always possible that if I’m being especially nice to you, it’s because I’ve sized you up, counted the red flags, and am simply doing my best to try and change the world a little.

Anyway, there we have it. LEAVE THINGS BETTER THAN I FOUND IT.

Let’s see how this goes.

-Watts.