Dear Diary
What a difference a year can make
It’s been a while since we spoke.
I’m not sure why I stopped,
but something broke.
Maybe it was me.
Maybe it was you.
I’m not here to lay blame.
We’re in this together,
I guess,
what I’m trying to say is…
It’s good to speak to you again.
Well.
It’s another year,
another spin.
I’ve met some new people
and lost some old.
I wish I could show you how much has changed,
but for now this is it:
all I have are these words.
Even they feel different,
a bit rougher on the paper,
maybe you feel it too.
It’s not been smooth.
Change never is.
Time’s a blur.
I look back along the path,
and it feels like staring across a mountain range.
The calm days blend together.
The peaks stay clear.
And even when I try to hide the toil,
I see the scars it left behind.
A year ago,
I looked in the mirror
and saw someone I’ll never forget.
They still sort of look like me,
but also,
really don’t.
Today I looked again,
and for a second
I caught a glimpse of someone else.
Someone I didn’t expect,
different from the person I saw before,
not me now, and not me then.
It’s more the me I saw a year ago,
the me that stayed on that same path,
Only now they’re a year on
and have clothes well pressed,
hair well kept,
no dirt under their fingernails,
or scars on their chest.
The first thing they said was:
“you’ve really changed”.
Their eyes were mine,
and their hands were too,
but something was missing,
and we both knew.
We stood for a while
and talked through our years,
mine full of fire
and theirs full of fear.
Every painful twists I shared,
they’d managed to miss.
Where I’d lost battles,
they’d chosen bliss.
Stood face to face,
we joked for a while
about how different we’d become.
All the same,
but a year,
now so little in common.
They showed me their world.
Their camera roll glowed with comfort.
Sunsets on the beach,
frictionless bliss.
So polished and complete.
I wanted to match it,
keep up with what they had.
I showed them all I loved:
places undiscovered,
ideas in notes,
work in progress,
half-baked dreams
yet to sprout.
I tried to explain what I’m doing,
but it came out all wrong.
Maybe I’d gone too far,
too far from what makes sense.
I looked up expecting judgement.
They didn’t flinch.
I could see where they were,
held in place,
and I’d become hard to hold.
I’d chosen the sea,
and they’d stayed ashore.
They’d chosen safety,
and I’d learned to fall.
I felt it in my stomach.
I was still jealous.
They were clearly living,
everything so arranged.
But when I looked closer,
I saw the collar again.
I was right.
Nothing was wrong.
But when we started talking about our dreams,
it all became clear.
They said they didn’t know about theirs.
“They’re a little buried,
somewhere in their head,
in between safety,
and plans of going to bed.”
I asked what they’d learned
from staying out of the rain.
They said,
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“Every time you choose safety,
you tighten your own chain.”
A year in review
New Year’s resolutions are a fad.
They fail a lot. For me they’re usually overly ambitious, ego-driven targets that don’t take me where I actually want to be.
In reality, I already know where I want to be. Just a bit happier, healthier, and more productive than last year.
So every year I take a little time to analyse my world.
Here’s my system:
Grab a notepad. Draw two columns:
POSITIVE | NEGATIVE
Go through your calendar, journal, WhatsApp messages, week by week, across the last year.
For each week, write down the people, places, habits, and commitments that you remember spiked you up, or dragged you down.
Put them in the right column. Be honest. Don’t judge. This bit is harder than you think. Some things might show up in both. That’s fine. You can sort it later.
When you’re done, put the paper in front of you and ask:
Which 20% of this column caused the biggest, most repeatable peaks?
Those are your winners. You’ll see them again in 2026, but get them locked in now. Book the dinner. Send the message. Buy the ticket.Then take the worst of NEGATIVE and start a new page:
DO NOT DO THIS
Put it somewhere you’ll see it every morning for the first few weeks of 2026.
These are the people and patterns you already know cost you.
Your old self will try to sneak them in.
It might be better if you don’t.
Hopefully helpful, let me know if you do it on Substack
Installs
Reflections I opens to the public on January 10th.
It’s the latest iteration in my Villain Series, and my first large-scale public work in London.
It’s supported by an incredible team, who’ve given me the chance to take risks I rarely see in public art outside major galleries.
It’s interactive.
It’s fun.
It’s combative.
If you’ve been following my work for a while, you know there’s always a darker undertone.
Getting that into public space has been one of the hardest battles I’ve fought over the last few years.
People like things shiny. People like things nice.
This will be both.
But I think I’ve got the balance right on this one.
More details next week, hope you get the chance to see it.
Perception Arc
Next week, we start the Perception Arc.
The reading list is below.
It looks heavy, but I’ll be sharing notes if you’re busy.
I’ll post them on Substack, and headline takes on IG and TikTok.
The academic side of art is a little sterile.
Artists love to think, and the art world loves to showboat with intelligence.
In reality, if there’s anything that unifies the role of the artists, it’s to
distil beauty from complexity.
The world is complex, time is short, and if you can see through the cracks, you owe people a cleaner view.
Week 1 - Your Identity Is the Battlefield
Personalities for sale: How we learned to be sold.
Reading
Power | Prediction | Capture
Shoshana Zuboff — The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (2019)
https://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/shoshana-zuboff/the-age-of-surveillance-capitalism/9781610395694/
Mask | Performance | Control
Erving Goffman — The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1956)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Presentation_of_Self_in_Everyday_Life
Discipline | Visibility | Identity
Michel Foucault — Discipline and Punish (1975)
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/55026/discipline-and-punish-by-michel-foucault-and-alan-sheridan/
Self | Model | Illusion
Thomas Metzinger — The Ego Tunnel (2009)
https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/thomas-metzinger/the-ego-tunnel/9780465020690/
Prediction | Selfhood | Stability
Anil Seth — Being You (2021)
https://www.anilseth.com/being-you/
Vision | Infrastructure | Power
Trevor Paglen — “Invisible Images (Your Pictures Are Looking at You)” (2016)
https://thenewinquiry.com/invisible-images-your-pictures-are-looking-at-you/
Art
Mirror | Interpellation | Label
Barbara Kruger — Untitled (Your body is a battleground) (1989)
https://www.thebroad.org/art/barbara-kruger/untitled-your-body-battleground
Network | Diagram | Capture
Mark Lombardi — artist page / selected works
https://www.pierogi2000.com/artists/mark-lombardi/
Archive | Evidence | Counterpower
Forensic Architecture — Investigations index
https://forensic-architecture.org/
Self | Image | Multiplicity
Cindy Sherman — The Complete Untitled Film Stills (1977–80)
https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/253
Media
Fame | Doubling | Fracture
Perfect Blue (1997)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_Blue
Status | Scoring | Compliance
“Nosedive” (Black Mirror) (2016)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosedive_(Black_Mirror)
Overlay | Ideology | Obedience
They Live (1988)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Live
Poetry
Gaze | Command | Change
Rainer Maria Rilke — “Archaic Torso of Apollo” (1908)
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/1679348/archaic-torso-of-apollo
Extra Credit
Identity | Meme | Contagion
René Girard — mimetic theory (overview)
https://iep.utm.edu/girard/
Self | Signal | Status
“Face” (sociological concept) — overview
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_(sociological_concept)
Interface | Power | Default
Don Norman — The Design of Everyday Things (2013 ed.)
https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262525671/the-design-of-everyday-things/
Final Words
Safety has a way of sneaking up on you.
We love comfort.
And as the years pass,
it gets harder to embrace risk.
To embrace Danger.
Fear creeps in.
Loss makes us vulnerable,
and the world knows that.
Over the next year,
I hope we’re both able
to take the risks we need,
To keep those collars at bay.
Stay free,
You deserve it.
Love you loads,
R x