Be It Resolved...

I think it's perfectly natural for people to make resolutions at this time of year. Modern secular technological society leaves little time for pause and reflection. As we become more and more devoid of rites and rituals, those things that mark the passage of time for us, it seems normal to me that at the one time of year when the passage of time is apparent and obvious to all we would look back and reflect. And in reflecting we would find fault with our past selves and endeavour to become better versions of ourselves. Thus, the new year's resolution.

I also think it's perfectly natural for people to fail at those resolutions. At root we are pretty lazy beings and meaningful change requires hard work.

That said, here's what I've come up with from my year end reflections, some things I'd like to work on but may fail miserably at:

To be more honest. Actually, I'm already pretty honest I'm just not very open. So I guess the resolution should be: To be more open. That seems to go against my nature though, as I'm a fairly closed and very private person. We'll see how that one goes.

To watch less television. I don't even have a television and I feel like I need to watch less of it.

To read more. I already read a fair bit, I just feel like I should do more of it. Bigger, better books. Like Ulysses and The History of Western Philosophy.

To cook more. I like cooking and I do a fair bit of it as well. I just feel like I should do more.

To write more. If this works out, lucky you guys, more of my ramblings for you.

To be less cynical. A friend recently said of some of my photographs that I take ugly things and make them beautiful. I think I need to do that with people. I need to look for the good things inside them instead of just assuming they're jerkwads. Of course, my response to my friend's comment was that I think those things are ugly, they just look cool, so we'll see how that one goes.

To be more angry. That may seem incongruous with the previous resolution but I don't mean to become a bitter and surly person. I just think I need to be angry at the things that I tolerate but don't really approve of, as being angry about them may inspire me to do something about them, whereas accepting or putting up with them leads to no change at all and me becoming, well, a bitter and surly person. The thing I intend to be angriest about? Not the fact that there's no coffee here at work right now, though I may get to that. No, it's modern-post-industrial-technological society's (or whatever we're now calling this thing in which we live) way of isolating us, making us disillusioned and unengaged and making our lives devoid of excitement, randomness and meaning. What the hell is wrong with us that half of the people I know are either miserable or depressed half of the god damned time?

Well, I think that's enough for now. Apparently I've got some work to do.