New Year's Resolutions, 20171997
1. Don't beat yourself up about money
A doozy. Repeat to yourself: "I am poor. That's just how it is. There's nothing wrong with not being able to afford something." This is perhaps less for me and more for some other family members who've been stressing out about this kind of thing for the past month or so.
2. Eat healthier food!
Simple. Easier said than done. Also probably the most common new year's resolution from entitled first-worlders like myself. Basic summation: eat fewer frozen pizzas. Eat more vegetables. It's not even that I don't like vegetables, I'm just so lazy that I eat whatever requires the least effort.
3. Don't shy away from shoving radical anticapitalism into people's faces
If there's one thing that's good about 2016, (known in some circles as "The Bad Year", in others as "It's just like every other year except more celebrities you like died and politics was happening in a way you couldn't ignore") it's that a lot of us have been forced to look at politics as a process of engaging with big frightening concepts. Which is what politics should be. The elite will have us believe politics are a game, a kind of long-running televised sport, fit to be treated as such - a commodity, a distraction, something you, personally, don't need to concern yourself with. Obviously, this is a huge, unforgivable lie.
Every time* I ignore it, every time I think "oh, I'll never convince this person, why bother having a discussion about something so controversial", I'm perpetuating the problem. I'm just another vehicle for the ruling class. If we want a better world, that has to end - permanently.
4. FOCUSSSSS
As anyone who's read my meandering, rambling blog post-ish things on index2.html knows, I start things but so seldom finish them that it generally causes me a lot of stress, and ultimately engenders a sense of disorganization and futility. Start something. Work on it. Finish it. Do more small things. Don't let the feature creep bug infect everything you do. You don't have to make masterpieces. It's okay, good even, to make broken, flawed, confused projects. Because broekn flawed confused projects signify a willingness to experiment. All that matters is sincerity. Anyone who won't accept that kind of sincerity isn't worth the time of day anyway.
5. The Dale Cooper Resolution
6. Retain any hope you get
So easy to become bogged down, nihilistic, hopeless in this day and age. Don't. The world still has a capacity for healing. The earth is not a cold dead place. There's still good things that happen. There's always something good happening somewhere. There's so much to look forward to. There's so much we've already accomplished. We just need to work together. I still have my cat. We still have the sense to see what's happening and fix it. It's not easy, but it's always going to be worth it.
Good luck, everyone.
