What happens when the jobs leave but the people remain, when the factories stand as ghosts empty, boarded, windows shattered, waiting for a purpose that won’t return? What happens when everything goes away but the broken dreams of generations who sit haunted by impossible expectations?

If you’d told me ten years ago that Daft Punk’s Within would be 2023’s saddest, most introspective song, I’d have asked you some inane question like, “If you had to give up books or music, what would you choose?” And yet, here we are.

What’s more thrilling — and frustrating — than the sample rabbit hole? That rhythm that flips the switch in your brain, gets you humming for days, and then comes back to haunt you when you try to remember where you’d heard it before?

We live in an era of grief, a long stretch when everything feels unhinged and unsettled, when oppressors seemingly control both power and popular opinion. Whose voice powers our next revolution? Who fills the spotlight left empty when our heroes die? Why not you? Me? If not now, when?

January has long been my albatross, a month that starts with do-over optimism and ends in loss, defeat, crisis. Restless nights as dark and long as the days are short with light.