2007

Anonymous asked me in my last post if I had made any resolutions. I’m not much of a new year celebrating kind of man. New Year’s Eve has always seemed to me like any other night and the next morning like any other day. A lot of hoopla about an arbitrary date set on a calendar.

But I do appreciate hallmarks that celebrate transition. So as I went to bed last night, I used the pedogenic sleep transition to contemplate any change I desired.

One thing that I’ve been working on lately within myself is a bad habit of rumination. You know how you have an encounter with someone only afterwards to find the right words you wished you’d said? Or, after an argument at work you imagine a future encounter and craft the perfect imaginary exchange?

I find that I create and live out various formulations of past and future possible encounters more and more often. I fantasize about a perfect dinner out. I have an uncanny ability to inspire positive change in my friends. I slice through the matter so precisely that I even amaze myself. I rework and correct my past fumblings.

This habit grows especially strong when there is no one with whom to process my days. Often times, I work, go home and then go back to work without ever having had any conversation that debriefs my experiences. So I play out the conversations as a kind of way to internally process my days, both previous ones and imagined future ones.

But the neurological grooves begin to cut too deeply; I find that more easily and more often I am living in time that is not the present moment.

So my resolution is:

No more imaginary relationships, either good or bad.

I resolve to fill my time with real encounters with real people, and to use those times for meaningful interaction.

(Photo: Snowman and cat built by my landlord's kids.)