Before writing any New Year resolutions and making plans for 2025, I want to reflect on 2024, to calibrate my own expectations and maybe as a reference point for my future self. It was a good year.

There were things I learned this year I wish I’d understood earlier. Those are the kind of things you learn only from life and never from reading, but, of course, I’ll write them anyway.

1. Live close by your friends. It makes life better in so many ways
2. Collaborate on everything you do: hobbies, work, learning
3. To start something, you’ll have to quit something. Choose wisely.
4. Consistency beats heroic effort
5. Behind every personal success stands a hundred of people who made it possible. Be thankful.

Below, I’ll tell more about where these maxima come from. I’ll focus on achievements rather than failures, even though I had a few of both. Thinking of achievements feels better, and learning from mistakes is overrated anyway.

I left Miro and joined Framer

I left Miro for Framer. I worked at Miro for over three years. It has changed, I have changed, and we didn’t really belong together anymore, so I decided to quit. Framer is different and I like it so far. Let’s see how it goes.

I’m really glad I’d quit before the wave of layoffs hit. Miro sacked people in such a blunt manner that I would feel frustrated no matter if I was laid off or not.

I don’t consume social media and news anymore

Well, except Telegram, where I stay in touch with people I care about and follow some niche communities, like an Interslavic chat, that sort of things. I am not subscribed to any channels, except the ones by people I personally know.

For world news, I read Deutsche Welle once a week, and barely anything else at all. I find their tone as emotionally neutral as it can get, and it is important because I can stay a functional human being after reading them. Unlike, say, The Guardian or New York Times, or even The Economist, even though I respect their journalistic a lot. More often though, I learn the state of world affairs from people I know in casual conversations. This way, I have a real human-to-human interaction, and even if I miss something out and get many details wrong, trading it for building a connection to a real human being seems a good bargain.

Quitting Instagram and news outlets frees up so much mental space that I finally have time and energy to write a book, learn French and do sports.

I am writing a book!

I don’t know about you, but for me, it’s big. I am writing a book on debugging web applications, a topic we do not discuss enough. I still don’t understand how there is not a single book about it. We can have a better web, and I believe I can help us all achieve that. I am lucky to have found a publisher willing to work with me, and not just a publisher but Pragmatic Programmers themselves, one of the most respected publishing houses out there. They kindly guide me through the process, making me better as a writer along the way. I strongly need that.

I expect to finish the book in the first half of 2025. I want the book to be outstanding, and I do believe it can change the web for the better. I have to admit, the prospect of wearing a badge of “Andrey Ozornin, The Writer” motivates me not any less than that. I will be gradually posting about it more and more as the release date comes closer.

Je peux dire quelque choses

Just before the last New Year, I started learning French. I use Duolingo and listen to podcasts: Coffee Break French and sometimes News in Slow French. I watch a couple of YouTubers: Française avec Nelly and French Mornings with Elisa, and study text materials they have published.

By now, I’m able to read and write small texts on daily topics and even speak with natives if they are willing to speak slowly and can tolerate me butchering their magnificent language. I am proud of being consistent and see results.

I organized High Tech Mess

I organized a mini-festival of art and technology High Tech Mess in March. It was a big collective effort of visual artists, musicians, sound artists, and many others who helped me just because they are very kind people. I would never be able to do it without them. It was a financial failure, creative success, and a super intense and bonding experience overall. I learned lesson worth a dozen of LinkedIn posts: “I organized a music festival and this is what it taught me about B2B sales”.

I abandoned Resonance.city

I abandoned the music sharing platform resonance.city, a pet project I worked on in 2023. I’ve made it to a point where it works fine, got an approval from Spotify to open the registration for everyone, and… I completely lost interest in it. Doing something so strongly reliant on a third-party API puts the project in a position so dependent that I just don’t want to invest any energy in it. Especially on Spotify, who are notorious for closing APIs and restricting integration with other platforms. It was fun to play around with Supabase, Next.js and Vercel, which was sort of the point.

Making music, making friends

I got acquainted with some people who are way better in making music than I am, and got to collaborate with them. One such person is Jeffrey (Skenna) who co-owns LonDam, a spaceship studio in Amsterdam West and an underground label releasing music just as weird as I like. We made a track together and it will go live soon.

I met Jeffrey through Nadia Struiwigh, a super prolific artist who taught me many things about music production and helped release Novaya Zemlya which I’m the most proud of. Through Jeffrey, I met Michal Basar, a super talented dub techno producer based in Rotterdam who helped me produce of a couple of more tracks that I’ll be releasing in 2025. It’s a big step forward from what I released earlier.

Yes, it is all about who you know, even if your goals are purely artistic.

I climb!

Since I quit kickboxing in 2023, I struggled to find an activity that would be as fun as kickboxing. This autumn, I finally found it! I climb. I go to Beest Boulders at least twice a week. I enjoy the privilege of having friends who share my hobby, and we all make good progress together.

I’ve actually been reading more

This year, I’ve read around ten books which is twice as many as last year. My personal highlights are:

• Atomic Habits. I have a certain prejudice against self-help books, but this one stands out. No wonder it’s sold in every airport.
• Thinking in Systems. A study on how to deconstruct and analyze large, complex systems with many interconnected parts in all their complexity: economies, natural habitats, group dynamics, etc.
• Chokepoint Capitalism. How big tech and big media are squeezing money, fun and creativity out of music, writing, film production and concert industry, and how we can change it.
• История его слуги. Limonov’s books never fail to spark in me the will to live, create and be my unique self, because Limonov loved living, creating and being himself, one of a kind. This one is a story of a proud, vulnerable, hysterical political immigrant who was never satisfied with the world nor himself, and it resonates in me on many levels.

Currently, I’m halfway through Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which I am re-reading after 10 years. It became even better than before!

I deliberately haven’t finished a couple of books I started and I recommend everyone else put away books you don’t enjoy reading. Reading is a big investment of time, and life is too short to waste it reading things that don’t spark interest.

I started this blog

I started writing again. First, for a Miro Engineering blog on Medium, then for my own Medium, then here. I enjoy this little innocent HTML coding here and there, like I’m back in 2010, and thar I have full control over what I make.

My 2024 was a good year, and I have everything I need to make 2025 even better. I wish you all the same.