optimism & resolutions
i am optimistic that there is an election next year, and that there is a turn of tide coming in politics, as was shown in november. i am optimistic that science is able to increasingly settle arguments about previously subjective experiences, like climate change, and therefore more things will be done to clean up our world and/or prevent further damage; for example, i am very optimistic about alternative energies. i am optimistic about the one good side effect of globalization, and that is that the average american is quite aware of what’s going on in other places in the world, at least moreso than 50 years ago, thanks to television, which does have its merits; i think people are starting to think much more in terms of global impact than they used to, which can only be a good thing. for myself, i am optimistic that i’ll finally be getting out of debt this year, which means that i will soon be able to travel like i’ve always dreamed of.
in general, i think he is quite right: i am a pessimist in words and say i have little faith in human nature, but in practice, i think most people try to do good things within their context, and as people are learning more and more about the world every day, that does make me optimistic.
of course i am also optimitic about my social life and my incredible friend network, and can only see the blooming relationships i have now becoming stronger and more valuable. because of this i am also optimistic that i’ll be accomplishing some things this year that i’ve been wanting to for quite some time – some of them yet undefined – but that overall my life is only going to get better; all signs point to good.
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i am not officially declaring any resolutions this year, especially since they are pretty much exactly the same as last year, and the same as everyone else’s: eat better, exercise more, spend less. as these are ongoing, they’re not really resolutions. the only REAL resolution i have for this year, as referenced above, is to pay off the rest of my debt. i’m now below $10k…so OMG. by the end of 2007 i’ll be debt free!
mark morford also writes on optimism and resolutions:
So here it is, this little hot pocket of time, a window, a pause, lasting maybe about a week, during which we feel it’s morally permissible to say, OK, let’s screw the nasty and Bush-ravaged past and to hell with the sinking feeling that we are ruining the planet very, very quickly and forget the fact that, say, more Americans have now died in Iraq than were killed in the Sept. 11 attacks, because here’s this weird little opportunity to make room for the new.
It’s a moment when you get to ask yourself, without too much intellectual mortification, without too much shyness about looking to the heavens and screaming out your soul’s craving for passionate cosmic penetration, well, what’s it gonna be? What can I resolve to improve or progress or evolve in the coming year? What is most meaningful and what is most profound to my heart and what can I do to give that very thing a wet tongue kiss from the divine every single goddamn day?
Then again, maybe you simply don’t want to do it. Maybe you’re like my friend G., the one who hates making resolutions, who hates the very idea of them and who says, Goddamn it if I want to change something or resolve to exercise more or treat my spouse with more overt kindness or watch better porn or drink better wine or take better care of my fingernails or dance more freely or screw with increased abandon, I don’t need some goddamn calendar date to do it for me, I just do it and I don’t care if it’s Jan. 1 or June 27, you know?
Yes, I know. I know this slightly cynical, smart-ass view because I have often subscribed to it myself. Well do I know the attitude that mutters, Why does it have to be the first week of January when we resolve to make some sort of silly change we stick to for a few weeks and then abandon right around February?
Here is your answer: Who the hell cares?
–full
amen.
i’m just as much against resisting random secular celebrations as the next pagan, but if i want to declare myself a new start on the day the calendar flips, so be it! there’s no denying your calendar changed. it’s a definitive marker. alternative calendars, astronomy and etcetera aside, you now have to write “2007″ here in the western world whether you like it or not. why not use it as an impetus for change? it’s not the ONLY impetus for change. it’s just a good one.
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