Happy Old Year

I’ve never quite gotten the idea of New Year’s resolutions, because promising you’re going to start doing something and then keeping it up for an entire year is almost impossible under all circumstances. I suppose if nothing in your life changed over the course of 12 months, then it might be possible but does anybody or know anybody who knows someone that that’s happened to? Of course not. And even if it did, the boredom would probably kill them.

So in that spirit, here are my Old Year’s resolutions; these are things that I am resolving to do for the next seven days of this year. And then we’ll see.

I did talk about some of these school-related ones in my classes, that I’m not going to respond if somebody raises their hand to ask a question and prefaces whatever they with “I have a question” or if they say “I’m confused”. Because this is doing nobody any good and it’s wasting everybody’s time. I understand English and can recognize a question when I hear one. And I don’t think you actually are confused, because you’ve made it to math class and are taking notes. Just ask your question and I’ll help you understand. That’s my job.

I resolve to except the fact that I am getting older and fight like hell against it at the same time. I’m always doing that, but the resolution is to try to find a better balance. To accept my limitations and push as hard as I can against them at the same time. But there is no grace in getting older and I resolve to not age gracefully.

I resolve to accept no assumptions. I’m not going to play by anyone else’s ground rules, because I don’t necessarily agree to them. Ground rules imply some sort of mutual agreement of the rules of play, and if it’s not mutual I simply don’t buy it. I will also try to not assume people are who they are, that friendships are what they are, that situations are what they are or even that I am when I think I am. I want to go deeper and listen and base my conclusions on more than facile judgment.

I resolve to listen to more music and to maybe try to make some music of my own. I don’t know exactly what that means, but I want to find out, if not in the next 7 days, then soon.

I resolve to not expect movies to treat all of society’s problems fairly, realistically, or intelligently, but I resolve to expect that of myself and those who have the power the make things better.

And finally, I resolve that I will try to leave everything that I encounter better than I found it. If I can do that, hopefully all the rest of it falls into place.

Mini-rant

Why haven't they come up with a better word for moisturizer? Every once and while you see an article that says "moist" is the word that people dislike the most. And if you read or listen to ads for moisturizer, they always use other words for how the product will make your skin feel. Because who wants to go around all day being moist?

No larger point- it just struck me as odd that nobody's come up with anything better than "skin lotion," which is so generic as to be completely meaningless- lotion only meaning a liquid applied externally for medicinal or cosmetic purposes. That sounds only slightly less creepy than being moist, so I will try to carry on with my skin feeling just like my skin.