By the Numbers.
Hi there, and Happy New Year to you.
I thought this year I'd share some of the notes I've jotted down in the front pages of this year's journal. This year, they all seemed to follow a theme of numbers.
My List for 2015:
185. This is becoming something of a perennial goal, having been declared several years in a row. It started out as a whole health and fitness-related paragraph, but over time it's been stripped down and pared to just the number; as my weight now bobs around 200, I still don't think this an unrealistic number, but as I still haven't accomplished it this remains something of a "horizon goal". But hey, that's what goals are for.
20 Books. I love books, but I'm kind of lazy about finishing them. Everybody I know has a stack of them by the bedside, but my aspiration is to cycle through and put 20 of them back on the shelves. As that works out to one every couple of weeks, give or take, I think I can manage that.
104 Postcards. In 2007, I think, I had an office, and I decorated the wall of that office with a pair of random postcards that I would swap out every week, largely to amuse myself. I decided that to keep the stack from being duplicated, I'd mail them to people - and it turns out I corresponded with more people that year than ever before. People looked forward to them. So I'm going to revive that practice - in fact, I've already started. At 2 a week, for 52 weeks, that's 104 cards. If you've found this entry, send me your address, and you'll get one, too.
6 Things. Note the capital. Last year, I crafted 5 Things. Sometimes they were simple, like poems which I released to the world - sometimes they were elaborate, physical objects like a musical instrument for myself, or a handmade chess set and board, made for an old friend. In either case, these Things did not exist in the world until I made them. And I like the feeling of being able to point to something and say that. So, this year, we make more of them.
5 Submissions. A friend once told me, "You could have the best aim in the world, but it doesn't mean anything if you don't take the shot." I haven't submitted The Soldier's Road for publication - or even consideration - since 2010. And I think that needs to change. I've dragged my feet on these personal projects (never more so than on D.Prae, which took 22 years to see daylight), and I've been telling myself that I wanted more progress on Footpad's Road before I try again - but that's a cop-out. So I'm gonna put it out there again, and see what happens. I mean, hell, I got requests for pages, so it can't be a total stinker, right? Maybe the market's turning; but I need to be in the damn water if I'm to catch the rising tide.
5 Museums. I realized the other day that I enjoy them immensely, but I don't take advantage of them enough. Perhaps steeping myself in others' finished works will motivate me to finish my own. And as one visit every 3 months seemed a little too manageable just by following Hilary around, I bumped it up to make at least one visit a conscious choice.
1 Completed MS. If I rooted around, I could quickly locate a half-dozen stories I started and never finished (hell, just the NaNoWriMo entries are good for that). But between the three Road manuscripts, Striking Home and anything else I might try to attempt this year, it seems reasonable that I should make an honest attempt at completing one, at least as a draft. Can't fill the barn if you don't cut the hay, am I right? Of course I'm right.
3 New Friends. I tried this a few years ago, and it resulted in my meeting with a whole new gaming group, some of which are still in contact with me. And the same way a shark dies unless it keeps moving forward, I need to keep meeting people if I'm to stay connected to the community and the world around me.
2 Organizations. See above. This one's just to grow my root ball, so to speak. And yes, I'm aware I'm mixing metaphors like crazy.
12 Gifts. We're all aware of the "be the change that you wish to see in the world" quote from M. Gandhi. Well, I'm thinking that the world needs more giving of gifts, and not just the frenzied purchase of children's affection over December or at birthdays: I'm talking about the meaningful offerance of something from one human being to another, an important connection that we often lose sight of. Mitch-san reminded me of this. So I'm going to try to do a little something, once a month, and see what kind of change, if any, that it brings to the world.
And that's the list, so far. I've got a few empty spaces at the bottom of that checklist, if I hit on something that I'd like to add or incorporate. And that's another thing about a list like this: it's not made of clay, malleable until some undetermined point and then to be treated as stone (and susceptible to breaking like any other ceramic). That's why I'm not calling them "Resolutions". These are not firm decisions. They're more like quotas, reasonable projections for behavior I want to see in myself, and subject to periodic evaluation and review. And doesn't that make more sense, in this shifting, ever-changing world?
I thought this year I'd share some of the notes I've jotted down in the front pages of this year's journal. This year, they all seemed to follow a theme of numbers.
My List for 2015:
185. This is becoming something of a perennial goal, having been declared several years in a row. It started out as a whole health and fitness-related paragraph, but over time it's been stripped down and pared to just the number; as my weight now bobs around 200, I still don't think this an unrealistic number, but as I still haven't accomplished it this remains something of a "horizon goal". But hey, that's what goals are for.
20 Books. I love books, but I'm kind of lazy about finishing them. Everybody I know has a stack of them by the bedside, but my aspiration is to cycle through and put 20 of them back on the shelves. As that works out to one every couple of weeks, give or take, I think I can manage that.
104 Postcards. In 2007, I think, I had an office, and I decorated the wall of that office with a pair of random postcards that I would swap out every week, largely to amuse myself. I decided that to keep the stack from being duplicated, I'd mail them to people - and it turns out I corresponded with more people that year than ever before. People looked forward to them. So I'm going to revive that practice - in fact, I've already started. At 2 a week, for 52 weeks, that's 104 cards. If you've found this entry, send me your address, and you'll get one, too.
6 Things. Note the capital. Last year, I crafted 5 Things. Sometimes they were simple, like poems which I released to the world - sometimes they were elaborate, physical objects like a musical instrument for myself, or a handmade chess set and board, made for an old friend. In either case, these Things did not exist in the world until I made them. And I like the feeling of being able to point to something and say that. So, this year, we make more of them.
5 Submissions. A friend once told me, "You could have the best aim in the world, but it doesn't mean anything if you don't take the shot." I haven't submitted The Soldier's Road for publication - or even consideration - since 2010. And I think that needs to change. I've dragged my feet on these personal projects (never more so than on D.Prae, which took 22 years to see daylight), and I've been telling myself that I wanted more progress on Footpad's Road before I try again - but that's a cop-out. So I'm gonna put it out there again, and see what happens. I mean, hell, I got requests for pages, so it can't be a total stinker, right? Maybe the market's turning; but I need to be in the damn water if I'm to catch the rising tide.
5 Museums. I realized the other day that I enjoy them immensely, but I don't take advantage of them enough. Perhaps steeping myself in others' finished works will motivate me to finish my own. And as one visit every 3 months seemed a little too manageable just by following Hilary around, I bumped it up to make at least one visit a conscious choice.
1 Completed MS. If I rooted around, I could quickly locate a half-dozen stories I started and never finished (hell, just the NaNoWriMo entries are good for that). But between the three Road manuscripts, Striking Home and anything else I might try to attempt this year, it seems reasonable that I should make an honest attempt at completing one, at least as a draft. Can't fill the barn if you don't cut the hay, am I right? Of course I'm right.
3 New Friends. I tried this a few years ago, and it resulted in my meeting with a whole new gaming group, some of which are still in contact with me. And the same way a shark dies unless it keeps moving forward, I need to keep meeting people if I'm to stay connected to the community and the world around me.
2 Organizations. See above. This one's just to grow my root ball, so to speak. And yes, I'm aware I'm mixing metaphors like crazy.
12 Gifts. We're all aware of the "be the change that you wish to see in the world" quote from M. Gandhi. Well, I'm thinking that the world needs more giving of gifts, and not just the frenzied purchase of children's affection over December or at birthdays: I'm talking about the meaningful offerance of something from one human being to another, an important connection that we often lose sight of. Mitch-san reminded me of this. So I'm going to try to do a little something, once a month, and see what kind of change, if any, that it brings to the world.
And that's the list, so far. I've got a few empty spaces at the bottom of that checklist, if I hit on something that I'd like to add or incorporate. And that's another thing about a list like this: it's not made of clay, malleable until some undetermined point and then to be treated as stone (and susceptible to breaking like any other ceramic). That's why I'm not calling them "Resolutions". These are not firm decisions. They're more like quotas, reasonable projections for behavior I want to see in myself, and subject to periodic evaluation and review. And doesn't that make more sense, in this shifting, ever-changing world?