My 2025 New Year's Resolution is to Love More & Hate Less:

I'm Hoping Radical Curiosity Can Sustain My Good Intentions.

It’s time for the annual New Year’s resolution. Whether you want to lose weight, exercise more, or read a hundred books in 2025, it’s time to set goals. People will try and quit doing the stuff that harms them or start doing the things that promise increased happiness and longevity.

We’re now a quarter into this century, and I don’t think the emphasis on self-improvement has yielded much good. Who cares what we each achieve individually if our collective society continues along its dystopian course?

Ever since October 7th (and probably even before then), my capacity for human engagement narrowed. Surrounded by so much hate, I started to hate people too.

“I’m a misanthrope now,” I often said. Driven by anger, I mistook my own words for wisdom.

But time has a way of dulling an initial impression, and this proved true for me too. Finally exhausted by my own rage, I felt myself tempted toward apathy. Unfortunately, apathy is boring. I couldn’t hack it. Plus, each new antisemitic incident triggered my nervous system. Disinterest doesn’t suit my temperament or my cognitive style. But how to maintain engagement without suffering so much indignation on a daily basis?

It was after Trump’s re-election that I changed course. I decided to lean into curiosity. Maybe I didn’t want to believe that half—or more than half—the population is bigoted. The spaces I inhabit tend to skew left, but after seeing so much antisemitism emerge from so-called liberals, I no longer trusted the Democratic party. I still voted for Harris, but whenever I saw Israelis and other Zionists demonized, I’d wonder if other groups have suffered similar fates under the guise of “social justice.” In this way, I gained more flexibility of thought.

Immediately following the election results, I posted a call for curiosity across all my social media platforms, including here. What happened next was both horrible and interesting: I lost some followers, but also—I lost actual friends. Not close ones, but people I’ve known for decades. Of course, Facebook doesn’t alert you when an unfriending occurs, so the discoveries came slowly. I’m sure there are additional friends who’ve unfriended me—ones I’ve yet to notice are already gone.

It’s never fun to discover someone has cast you off, but in this case, it was fascinating because I managed to offend BOTH liberals and conservatives. Both Democrats and Republicans. Both Harris voters and Trump voters.

I reached out to some of these people. A few responded. Apparently, I hadn’t expressed enough outrage against Trump for the left-leaning folk. Likewise, conservatives found my position too anti-Trump.

Perhaps I didn’t make a clear enough argument the day following the election. What I’d tried to convey was less about Trump or Harris or either political party. What I’d hoped to express was some hope in humanity—despite everything—and I’d wanted to endorse curiosity as a way forward.

We’ve already been here back in 2016. What good came of retreating toward our personal silos? I’d argue that everything grew worse. I don’t know how we move forward without finding common ground. Moreover, I know too many Trump voters who are definitely not bigots.

One example: A friend of mine who is the parent of a transgender son voted for Trump in order to protect her adult child. According to her reasoning, the Republican party might hinder trans rights in the short run (such as access to hormone therapy in red states), but they’ll better protect our country from a radical Islamic takeover. For this specific friend, the threat of jihad is the greatest terror.

Whether my friend’s threat assessment is accurate or not is hardly the point. What matters is that she voted for Trump AND she is pro LGBTQ. It may strike others as counterintuitive, but if you stick around long enough to hear her out, she’ll explain why she thinks the Democratic party poses a greater threat toward her trans child’s life: She thinks the left is going to self-implode. That we need stricter immigration policy that prohibits any influx of radical Islamists. That our tolerance for an ideology that is not compatible with Western values is going to be our undoing.

I’m sure someone reading this is now thinking: Well, Jen—your friend is simply Islamophobic!

Anyone familiar with LGBTQ rights in Islamic societies knows that no such rights exist. And it’s not simply the absence of civil rights—there’s punishment by death.

But let’s return to the point here: What we assume to be true of a particular voter may, in fact, be the very opposite thing driving that voter’s decision-making. This is just one example of why we ought to stop projecting our assumptions onto others. When we fail to engage in meaningful conversation, we risk turning others into Rorschach ink blots.

I am not your Rorschach test. And you are not mine.

How to prevent ourselves from dehumanizing every person whose opinion offends us, especially when and if we haven’t explored the complicated nuance behind a person’s thought process?

I think the only way forward is to employ radical curiosity when it comes to other people. We must ask why. We cannot assume. The internet and social media have enabled us to live in an ongoing state of conflict without ever truly engaging others. We barely scrape the perimeter of true relationships, yet we feel as if we know our online connections, and then we project monstrous ideas onto others outside of any relational context for true understanding.

I’m guilty of this too.

For these reasons, my 2025 resolution is to become more relational. Individually oriented goals hold less appeal at the moment—they lack urgency given the current state of affairs in the world at large, including but not limited to global antisemitism. There’s also a mental health epidemic, increased reports of loneliness, and so forth. The kids are not okay. Neither are the adults.

I want to enter the new year with openness. But also, I can already anticipate my greatest challenge: How will I maintain an inquisitive mind when faced with anti-Israel rhetoric?

What I’ve learned about myself this past year is that I have more flexibility regarding American politics than I do when it comes to blood libel against the Jewish state.

To illustrate, imagine a hypothetical situation in which one is forced to choose between watching Fox news or an anti-Israel protest. I would rather watch Fox news! I would rather listen to Ted Cruz than witness hordes of college kids celebrate barbarism.

This is going to be my personal test—how and whether to hold space for those who boycott Israel. I’ll need to summon the chutzpah to run straight toward conflict in hope of learning that a person is simply misinformed or a victim of herd mentality.

In the writing community, we already know the names of too many authors who’ve signed their names against the Jewish homeland. What do we do about this? Do we stop buying their books? Do we publicly scold them? Or do we try to understand their motivation by directly reaching out?

Readers of this Substack already know that silence is not my style—but how do we engage with hate? If we approach others with curiosity, do we risk our own hearts and souls and possibly our physical safety? On the other hand, if we can’t listen, how do we teach? How do we demonstrate our humanity?

I don’t have a perfect solution. Even as I type this, I cannot ignore my impulse to bury my head in cynicism.

Meanwhile, there are still hostages held captive in Gaza. What a luxury it is to pose questions from the comfort of my home library.

If you are a friend to Israel, what are your thoughts and plans for how to navigate 2025? Will you engage with pro-Hamas supporters? Will you keep reading work penned by anti-Israel writers? Whatever intention you’re setting for the new year, please share it! Also, please note if you’re changing strategy or not.

Hoping for a Happier New Year,

Jen