Past midnight

An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.
- Bill Vaughan

I wanted to post some New Year's resolutions on New Year's Day. Since today is the 8th, obviously my first one is to avoid procrastination.

Actually many of my resolutions involve better managing my time and avoiding participating in what Kurt Vonnegut called "granfalloons" (communities whose shared identity or purpose is ultimately meaningless). That's easy. I'm already a few steps ahead. I am no longer a member of the "TV Watchers" community – the writer's strike killed half a season of Heroes and what else is there to watch? I am also no longer a member of the "Mumbling Political Debaters" community. That sounds counterintuitive in 2008 since it's an election year, but it's hard to be interested in politics when you really don't support any of the candidates. That saves me countless hours of blogging, mumbling in forums about politics, watching YouTube videos, etc. Heck, I've probably saved a collective month of my life right there.

Side note: The writer's strike isn't all bad. Apparently a lack of freshly written movie scripts pushed through the as-yet untitled X-Files sequel set to be released in July. Hollywood was digging around in their bin of already finished scripts to push into production, and up floated this one (you can't see me, but I'm foaming at the mouth). This will be one incredible year for movies.

Back to resolutions. I've actually got hundreds in my head that deal with a general betterment of the only contribution I have to the human race – myself – but there's two that supercede all the others and make for master resolutions. These place all the others in context. They are...

• Surround myself with positive people who feel that life is an adventure, full of mystery, and worth pursuing, people who are as motivated and engaging as I am (or as I would like to be).
• Continue to care about the people who occasionally float through my life that are either miserable by design or circumstance, but remain detached enough that their reality does not become my own (while realizing that this is harder than it sounds).

The parenthetical statements above are natural corollaries to their previous statements and though they sound like "outs", which aren't very resolute, they are simply acknowledgments that no one is perfect and everyone gets wrapped up in negativity at times.

And that's all there is to it. If anyone – hopefully myself – can maintain these master resolutions and whatever sub-resolutions stem from them, it's bound to be a great 2008. If I remember to, I'll come back in Jan. 2009 and tell you how I did.