INFINITE FINALITY | 15 JANUARY 2026 | London, United Kingdom

I’ve always been drawn to Caravaggio. Not only by the aesthetic - the dramatic chiaroscuro, Renaissance colouring, scenes that feel human yet mythological at the same time - but by the way his work acknowledges darkness without glorifying it. There’s grit, and a confrontation with the darker sides of life, or one’s own personality, soul, character - yet those realities are framed against a noble desire for enlightenment. Maybe that’s why he spoke to so many people. Maybe that’s why he still does. Even without deeper analysis, I feel these things.

So, with Caravaggio’s Saint Jerome Writing marking the threshold of this next chapter - a hand, symbolically (both metaphorically and literally) writing one’s life story - I move into 2026 confronting my own mortality for the sake of character development. An acceptance of finitude, not as limitation, but as the condition that gives weight to what follows. Because if you begin with the end in mind, so much falls away. What I think of as ‘standardised Western existence’ no longer feels essential to keep up with, and richer human pursuits - those that develop and deepen the soul, individually and collectively - emerge as the true metrics of a life well lived.

So while streaming numbers, playlist placements, vinyl sales, audience size, and money in the bank all matter this year, they are not the axis. They are finite measures. Useful, but not eternal. Days, weeks, and months that contribute to the deeper arc - creating work that moves people, walking friends home, loving for love’s sake, art for art’s sake - must remain the North Star. Finite acts, chosen deliberately, in service of something I hope outlives me.

Image: Caravaggio - Saint Jerome Writing

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