Like any car crash, it’s hard to look away.

Hello there. Been a while.

If you’re like me, in the last year you spent way too much time reading about politics. Some more time spent reading about politics can be useful and educational. The amount I — and I suspect many of us — spent gawking at the disaster that has been the last year was probably unhealthy.

One of the things that suffered most in my life was the time I spent reading other things. More substantial, wide-ranging or thought-provoking things that, say, might spark new ideas or even motivate one to write something themselves. Case in point, you may notice the last week this site was updated. Mostly I stared at the burning wreckage.

But hey, new year, fresh start and all that.

What have you spent less time doing than you used to, now that the world is a never-ending political circus you can’t stop watching and talking about?

Are you better for it and going to continue? If not, what are some of the things you’ve sacrificed to follow the nonsense that you’re looking to get back to?

This one may be kind of cheating, since a whole lot of potential answers are right here in this super cool/weird video. But as this only scratches the surface (and there have only been so many episodes of Black Mirror so far)…

What other potentially strange uses might result from everyone having AR or VR on a regular basis?

Which ones sound great, and which ones sound awful or terrifying?

Because the desert island question is too easy.

If you asked most people to name their top 5 albums, they probably have a rough list in their head ready to go. But why? My theory is that the albums you will love the most for your whole life only come at important times in your life that allow you to 1) relate to them deeply, as well as 2) spend a lot of time listening and re-listening to them.

But what about your top 5 bands? If you settle on a few of those after a lifetime of listening to music, how do you choose which album by those bands is your favorite? Again, a theory: it is very, very hard for any album, even by your favorite band, to surpass the connection you have with the one specific album that cemented them as one of your favorites.

This means that rarely is it the first album you hear (though sometimes it is, if that one speaks most to you and is a fully realized version of that artist). More often, you will be introduced to a band with an album and start to love them. But a later album will be the one that seals the deal. And once that happens, no other album will ever quite live up to that mark.

However, that is more a function of your relationship to the band than the actual album’s quality. The album you love the most is not necessarily their best work, objectively.

For example, I am a huge fan of The Mountain Goats, a band with a huge catalog and literally dozens of albums. I discovered them in college, well into their career, and heard enough of their early tracks to grow interested. But with the release of Tallahassee, the first full album I owned, I had a musical step forward from a band I already liked, a tight thematic package about a crumbling relationship, that I could play over and over as I read, wrote, or studied — as well as sulked, as I went through various relationship troubles of my own.

If you polled all Mountain Goats fans, the majority opinion might be that an earlier album like All Hail West Texas may have some of the most poignant and memorable songs in their whole catalog, and capture them at the peak of their lo-fi period. Or they might say that The Sunset Tree was the most personal, intimate, and moving while capturing both a totally coherent sound and emotional narrative. It may be their real masterpiece. But for me, it will always be Tallahassee. It’s the work that cemented their place in my heart, and so my relationship with that album supersedes any discussion of objective merit.

So instead of just sharing favorite albums — which doesn’t lead to a very long or interesting conversation, really — ask yourself:

What is your favorite band’s best album? Why do you think so?

What personal connection do you have to that album that might make it your favorite and not the consensus pick? What’s the story behind your choice?

Corona-ad-style trips look like paradise during the week, but getting trapped in one forever would be a little bit like hell, wouldn’t it?

Last weekend I was on vacation, and I have very few good vacation stories or photos, because it was intentionally more of a “do nothing”-style vacation. No adventures, no excursions, no tourist destinations, not even very many activities. Sometimes, that’s nice.

But on the last day I had a vacation-induced thought: sitting around doing nothing is ‘relaxing’ after a busy or stressful work period, but doing nothing for too long would surely drive a person crazy in the end. Without much purpose or any concrete goals or productivity, doesn’t life quickly become empty?

Let’s say “doing nothing” has a few boundaries: you can do vacation-type things like play games, read books or magazines, eat and drink or even go to bars or clubs or restaurants. But once you do anything that could be considered work, or productive, you’re not “doing nothing” any more. So no writing, creating, building. Even gardening or decorating or demanding chores are off limits. In this scenario you’re not fantastically wealthy but you’re wealthy enough not to worry and to have a well-above-average lifestyle and budget. You can be wherever you want, but you have to stay there: traveling to a new place every day is too much of an adventure, and wouldn’t count as “doing nothing”. So.

How long do you think you could go doing essentially nothing?

What would you fill your time with in order to “do nothing” for as long as possible?

What people could you do nothing with the longest?

What about doing nothing, specifically, would eventually drive you nuts?

“If I could drop this mic, I would, but it’s attached to the podium.”

While listening to Obama on WTF with Marc Maron I remember thinking, in that more conversational, less guarded interview with the president, that more than anything else, he’s a brilliant man that is deeply saddened he couldn’t do more as president.

A lot of those same feelings came through in his final State of the Union speech last week. He’s always been a great speaker, he’s obviously very smart, and wants to make an impact that makes America better. That made him a good president, even if the obstacles in his way (which he dedicated almost a quarter of the speech to addressing) kept him from being one of the great legends he idolized like Lincoln or Roosevelt.

But in another year he’ll be done, and still a relatively young, healthy, driven individual. Still a charismatic figure, still an educated law maker and policy wonk. Where does that potential turn next?

What would you like to see Obama do after being president?

Who’s post-presidency will his most resemble?

What would make the biggest difference?

What do you hope he definitely doesn’t do?