I’m just happy to be here

And in a world gone mad, I’m just happy that YOU’RE here

Sunday the 29th was foggy all day, which perfectly matched my state of mind.

We’re just about at the end of that weird in-between time that spans the liminal distance between Christmas and New Year’s — that seven-day sojourn during which we can’t seem to get our bearings and time has no meaning.

Despite decades of experience muddling rather aimlessly through this pocket universe of unbeing, I still stride into it with grand intentions of being super productive. Every. Single. Time. Will I never learn?

This year, for instance, I had grand plans to: get a week ahead on writing pieces for this newsletter, achieve inbox zero, declutter several rooms in my home, complete some art projects I started earlier this year, mail several long-overdue packages to friends, finish a book I started reading in June, wash the floors, rake the rest of the leaves (before more snow flies), and maybe even cook a meal or two from scratch.

Today is the last day of the year. 
Tomorrow will be dedicated mainly to putting the Christmas things away. 
Thursday I’ll be more or less back to work as usual. 

And the only task I accomplished from my overly optimistic list was finishing the book I started in June. (Which was, by the by, excellent, and the length of time it took me to read it should in no way detract from that excellence.)

Today is also the six-month-and-one-week anniversary of this newsletter. 🎉

In honor of that milestone (and it being the end of the calendar year) I had thought I might put together a 2024 wrap up of my most popular posts, but thinking about doing that just made me tired. So, instead, I am bringing you a not-Monday Monday Moxie post, which seems appropriate since I keep forgetting what day it is.

The truth is, I’ve been feeling a little melancholy of late.

I hesitate to share that because I don’t want to bring the mood down or cause any worry. There really isn’t anything to worry about.

Maybe it’s just the time of year. Maybe it’s that December 31^st represents — albeit an artificial one — an ending of sorts, and endings tend to be a bit sad.

Maybe it’s the anxious anticipation of wondering what 2025 may hold given the deeply unsettling state of … everything.

Whatever may be behind my temporary-yet-insistent desire to curl up on the couch under a soft blanket and escape from reality for a while, I am not too troubled by the impulse. I know this too shall pass. I also know that moments of quiet and grave reflection tend to serve a purpose, even if I am never sure what that purpose is.

I felt this understanding reflected back to me in a passage from Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet, which I read today for the first time.

So you must not be frightened, dear Mr. Kappus, if a sadness rises up before you larger than any you have ever seen; if a restiveness, like light and cloud-shadows, passes over your hands and over all you do. You must think that something is happening with you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life any agitation, any pain, any melancholy, since you really do not know what these states are working upon you? Why do you want to persecute yourself with the question whence all this may be coming and whither it is bound? Since you know that you are in the midst of transitions and wished for nothing so much as to change.

In the midst of transitions, indeed. And change — even change we perceive as positive — is never easy. But it is very often worth the effort.

Do you know what makes change easier? Going through it with friends. So, on this last day of a rather tumultuous year, I thank you very much from the bottom of my heart for being here and keeping me company on this journey.

I launched Inner Wilderness Unlimited with quiet hope, but very little sense of what to expect. What I have found so far is a warm and wonderful community of fellow travelers, writers, and artists who have been unendingly generous with their time and words of encouragement. I still don’t know with any certainty where this adventure might take me, but I’m so grateful to have you along for the ride.

In that spirit, I bring you a quirky little song that I discovered through a fellow Substack writer, the talented and big-hearted

Lyns McCracken

. The video I’m sharing is not, I don’t think, officially affiliated with the band, but I found that the compilation of home video-style clips told the story of the song so well.

As we step over the threshold into the New Year, I wish you all the joys of self discovery, camaraderie, and creative expression. I wish for you safety and abundance, inspiration and courage. And I wish for you time to slow down and take it all in.

Until next time.

Happy to Be Here

Wookiefoot, 2021 ~ Track 1 on the album, Writing on the Wall

I'm so happy to be here, yeah
I'm just happy to be here
Still, I know the world's on fire
The situation's dire
A lot of work and courage gonna be required, but
I'm just happy to be here (yeah, yeah)

I'm sure there's many versions inside this multiverse
Where I put it in forward, instead of in reverse
The technical skill, I neglected to rehearse
Understandably landed me, handedly into a world of hurt
It could be worse, I could be cursed to be
Living a life, stuck on a different timeline
Where I never find time to discover my path
And never asked, the questions that I needed to ask
And never signed the bottom line on my soul contract

And the multiple me's, that just might be
Insignificant in this infinity
We're still strummin' the chords on a string theory
The only thing that's clear to me is
I'm so happy to be here, yeah
I'm just happy to be here

Still I know the world's on fire the situation's dire
A lot of work and courage gonna be required, but
I'm just happy to be here

My body is a time machine
Traveling through time and space at 60 minutes per hour
But my mind is like a trampoline
It lets me instantly bounce between different scenes
And super-strange superpower

It could get weird
I could appear like a ghost
Visitin' myself as a kid to let him know it's not that bad
And he should learn to self forgive
I could go to my bedside near my death
And just laugh with that old man as we enjoy my last breath

And the multiple me's, that just might be
Insignificant in this infinity
We’re still strummin' the chords on a string theory
The only thing that's clear to me is
I'm so happy to be here, yeah
I'm just happy to be here

I will take the time to remind you to find you (where you are)
Kindly remind me to find me (ooh)
I will take the time to remind you to find you (will you?)
Kindly remind me to find me

In this maze of possibilities
It's easy to lose yourself
But on your darkest day, you can find your way
When you've got a friend to help, and that's why

I'm just happy that you're here, yeah
I'm just happy that you're here
And in a world gone mad and no one understands
I know you'll always be around to lend your hand, so
I'm just happy that you're here (yeah, yeah)


"You mock my pain
Life is pain, highness
Anyone who says differently is selling something"


Artist: Wookiefoot
Composer: Mark Murphy