Will this end too?
2024.12.10.

I’ve been sitting in front of my computer for an hour, trying to gather my thoughts. I wanted to write a summary of the year—this exceptionally strange year.

So much has happened this year, and maybe it weighed on me a little. It was a year of goodbyes. Goodbye to something—maybe the past, a phase of life, a few friends, or the changes of the past four years. It felt like waiting for a connection. No plane in sight, no movement, just sitting in the waiting room, unsure if the next plane will arrive on time or who will continue the journey with you—or who won’t.

You just watch the faces in the waiting room.

This whole year felt like waiting and sitting around. And while I didn’t go anywhere—neither literally nor figuratively—there were people moving around me, stopping by for a while. This past hour was the same: quiet and reflective. I’m closing the year... I’m sitting here in the middle of a forest, in a cabin. The wood crackles in the stove and in the small fire pit outside. As I sit and watch the fire, the atmosphere feels perfect for conversations.

There’s something about fire that makes me relax. Everything feels calm as I watch the flames dance, hear the wood crackle, and let the warmth and the smoke smooth out my mood.

I’m reflecting on conversations.

This year, I spoke with 91 entrepreneurs, exactly. I counted—though maybe I got it wrong. So, I met 91 people who wanted to talk during this strange year. 91 stories. Athletes, artists, politicians, researchers—some wanting to start a business or already running one but struggling to find their way. Entrepreneurs unsure about what they want to do, or with whom, or having reached the top but unsure where to go next.

There’s something comforting about fire—a slow, quiet warmth that draws you in deeply. I love this feeling. It doesn’t demand anything, isn’t in a hurry, takes nothing away. It only asks for attention, for you to feed its warmth occasionally. Maybe starting the fire is the hard part, but once it’s burning, everything becomes simple.

Maybe conversations are the same. Maybe these conversations are to our souls what the fire is to me here in this winter forest. And perhaps it’s no coincidence that in the past, people gathered around the stove or the fire to chat, joke, tell stories, or just sit quietly together.

So, December—a time for reflection.

2024 was a tough year. Maybe that’s why so many came to talk because it was hard for them too. Perhaps that’s what brought us together—me and these 91 people. We all struggled. Each in their own way. Maybe we were all standing in this year’s transit zone, looking helplessly around like Neo in The Matrix. Wondering where to go next. What direction to take—or if we’re stuck in this nowhere state forever.

Perhaps we were, and still are, like Neo at the subway station in The Matrix. Maybe this year, this station, symbolizes transition and stagnation—a state where, like Neo, we are physically and symbolically stuck. This state reflects our inner conflicts and uncertainties, triggered by our reflections on ourselves, the purpose of human existence, our goals, and identity.

It’s like being in a liminal space where old rules no longer apply, but the new directions are not yet clear. Perhaps these are the moments in life when we feel unable to move forward or backward. Yet, these transitional periods are necessary for finding new paths and growing. And these transitions, these moments on the threshold of closure and change, can be so challenging, so opaque, that we don’t even realize what’s happening around us—or to us.

But what can I do while there’s no forward or backward? What can we do while waiting for our plane? Perhaps the best thing is to sit down and talk.

And maybe this year, in this very strange 2024, we all did the best we could—my 91 conversation partners and I.

We paid attention to the fire. To ourselves. To each other.

And so, this very strange 2024, in its own way, gave us the best it could.
We just don’t know what that is yet…

The article was translated from Hungarian to English by ChatGPT. Thank you, ChatGPT, for being here.