2001-01-01 - 23:59:07

Resolutions

Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific laws. Their origin is pure vanity. Their result is absolutely nil. They give us, now and then, some of those luxurious sterile emotions that have a certain charm for the weak. . . . They are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they have no account.

----Oscar Wilde

So here we are in 2001, that year immortalized in the science fiction classics 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Someone transported from 1969 (when the book was on the bestseller lists) to today would probably be disappointed with what the future looks like. There are no regular flights to the moon, and in spite of nearly everyone's best efforts there is still no real proof that we are not alone in the universe. All the monoliths around here are man-made. Things probably look rather humdrum and ordinary to our time traveler, and probably he or she will be utterly horrified by sixties nostalgia and the way that time has been sentimentalized.

Probably the most amazing fact about our modern age, the thing that flew under the radar of nearly every science-fiction author, was the revolution in electronics. The way we can store so much information in such tiny spaces and the fact that a computer is quickly getting to be an indispensable part of the Modern American Home.

In fact, there is a very good chance that there is more computing power sitting on your desk right now than existed in the entire WORLD in 1969.

Hmmm. Where did that rant come from? That's not what I meant to talk about at all.

I used to be a big one for resolutions on New Year's Day. I was very much into "self-improvement" and looking in my library you can see all sorts of regrettable books I bought when I was in that phase. Deepak Chopra! Leo Buscaglia! Wayne Dyer!

In recent ears, I've been much more modest in my New Year's resolutions. In fact, my resolution usually is: "To make no resolutions." An easy one to keep! It's easy to jump over the bar when you lay it on the ground!

Why do people make New Year's Resolutions? It's probably because the rollover at the end of the year reminds us that time is passing, and our time on Earth is finite. It makes us consider questions like: where is my life going? Am I happy with the direction it's taking? What bothers me about the way I'm living my life? How would I feel next New Year's Eve if I changed it now? Or if I didn't change it? How would I feel now if I'd made this resolution last New Year's Eve and kept it?

Okay, enough beating around the bush. I picked three resolutions.

1) I need to take better care of my health. I need to keep my blood sugars under control, and I need to keep losing weight. I lost a good deal of weight in the first half of 2000, but gained a bit of it back in the second half. Losing the weight is not a matter of vanity - it is a health risk, especially for diabetics.

2) The Hamster Palace is a mess. I want to do something about that. I want to make friends with housework, and I want to organize my life better. This is a complicated subject, and I will talk about it at greater length later.

3) This last one will please my readers here - I'm going to make a point of paying more attention to Uberhamster, my little house on the Internet. After several months of updating every day, I've slacked off badly. It started after the Diaryland Survivor competition, and it hasn't properly started up again since then. And I hate to admit it, but my hit count reflects that. I need to start putting in more work here. I admit this is a little ironic since right now I'm a week behind in my entries...

Folks, I'm working on it!

While I was mulling over my resolutions, it occurred to me that none of them mentioned my dear Lily. I really didn't feel the need to include her in any resolutions, although she is involved in all of them. When I asked her to move in with me I made a promise to myself to try to be the best boyfriend and roommate I knew how to be. So far, so good.

Besides, if I need a stupid resolution to remind me to be thoughtful to my sweetheart, someone should just kick me in the head.

I'm being flexible with these resolutions, I'm trying to define what they mean to me, and why I need to be mindful of them throughout 2001. I'm going to try to make them easy to succeed at, without laying the bar on the ground again.

I'll be talking about these resolutions in the next couple of entries.