Hi friend!

I hope you are having a great holiday and can relax a bit.

Last week’s piece: Mental-Health-Related Holiday Gifts for EVERYONE of ALL AGES

THE TYRANNY OF BEST-OF LISTS

When you make things for a living, you spend a fair amount of time battling doubts, internal and external obstacles, and people’s belief in you.

The bumpy uncertainty paving the road to publication or production—whatever entrance into the world your work must pass—is uncomfortable, and the hike can take years; years puckered by loneliness.

When you finally finish your project, you are ragged and exposed, emotionally charged and packed down with hope and craving, knowing what’s ahead is an experience whose outcome your years of work cannot predict or control.

One bad review can derail a career that hasn’t started or end one that’s been gaining strength.

Critics have tremendous power and don’t often understand the gravity a bad review can have on the soul of an artist, at least not until their work is assessed in the same manner.

The presence of a bad review crushes as much as the absence of your work on year-end roundups and best-of lists.

But let’s be clear: there is no such thing as a “best” anything.

There is only “out of the narrow pool of things I managed to experience this year, here are the ones that most moved or impacted me.”

A best-of-list can be entirely subjective or entirely political. Artists who can afford to hire publicists often do so to help themselves get on a list. It frequently feels rigged, and perhaps it is.

Of course, if you DO land on a best-of list, you’ll vibrate with validation, and your core wounds will feel resolved until your next project is upon you, and it all begins again.

So, instead of a best-of list, I am offering A HANDFUL OF MY FAVORITE THINGS from 2023 and A HANDFUL OF MY LEAST FAVORITE THINGS from 2023.

My favorite things delighted, taught, invigorated, and inspired me. 

My least favorite things left me gutted and dissociated.

HERE ARE A HANDFUL OF MY FAVORITE THINGS from 2023.

FIRST, THE PERSONAL:

1. Watching the movie YOU ARE SO NOT INVITED TO MY BAT MITZVAH, based on my book written under a pseudonym, with my friends and family.

2. This Shouts and Murmurs

3. Feeling grown enough to end therapy after 23 years.

FAVORITE FINDS

1. Sonia Delaunay

2. Abortion Trading Cards

3. This perfect Diptyque Bais candle dupe on Amazon sells for $30, which is $40 less than the original!!

4. A lightly used copy of the original Peoplemaking by Virginia Satir was left on Dekalb Avenue. It sells on Amazon for $134!

5. BetterSleep

FAVORITE STALWARTS

1. Inbox Collective (when you have a newsletter, there are things you didn’t know you needed to know, but Dan Oshinsky knows them!)

2. Jeremy Caplan’s Wonder Tools is for those who can’t stop trying out new tools, apps, and platforms.

3. Product Hunt is your new rabbit hole if you love being the first to hear about tech products.

FAVORITE READING EXPERIENCES

My most profound insights don't go in the free version—they're distilled from my 27 years in therapy, decades of independent study, and work as a mental health advocate. These frameworks and perspectives are reserved for readers committed to going deeper.

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