On Hopemaxxing and Rediscovering Books
VirtueMoir’s Moulin Rouge performance from 2018 has been a longtime Roman Empire of mine; I think now Alysa Liu’s MacArthur Park Suite performance from the 2026 Olympics will be another one. Like, wow? The smiles throughout? The flick of her hand during her split jump? The aerial shot by Cristophe Ena of her final spin, that idyllic grin stamped on her face? (Reminds me of this panel of Gojo fighting Toji).
Isn’t hers a damn good comeback story?
And both of these stories — Alysa Liu returning to a sport on her own terms and being rewarded for it1, Virtue and Moir’s lifelong partnership — are so romantic both, and lead me to Blueboy’s 1994 song The Joy of Living.
Hopemaxxing. Joymaxxing. I want to do these. In this year of the Fire Horse and into the months of my Saturn return and going forward, I want them to define me. I want to experience that bliss.
I’ve spent the last decade simmering in catastrophe after another, it seems like. A look at Erikson’s psychosocial stages:
I think I frontloaded Generativity vs. Stagnation in my late adolescence and early adulthood and am only now getting to Intimacy vs. Isolation and Identity vs. Confusion. I feel so old!! And yet recently, by getting out more, and through late night conversations with new friends, and one baking experiment after another, I have become young again. Being young again, I want to return to a habit I once had: reading.
So much of my life is only possible because of the wonderful books I’ve read and stories I have absorbed. Despite my terrible (and now nonexistent) relationship with my mother I acknowledge that she provided me with two indispensible traits: an insatiable hunger for knowledge and a habit of incessant thinking (i.e., ruminating, mulling, reflecting, stewing).
But — some time this decade I got lost. I started to read (past tense) books only to appeal to fellow book readers, to prove myself knowledgeable, worthy, even “woke”. I read (again, past tense) to imitate better writers. I read not for myself but for imagined audiences. I ached for approval.
I don’t want to do that anymore. I want to enjoy the books I read2 and talk about them with people and absorb and grow and bloom. I am who I am because of the experiences and worlds and mysteries I’ve traversed through text. Yes, I can let myself be myself. I can choose books that interest me and forgive myself for choosing my own joy.
How beautiful it is to be alive!! What a blessing it is to live in a world full of beautiful, beautiful words!! Art! Good stories!! Thank god!!