Thoughts on the New Year
I know that New Years' journal posts are a trite and tired cliché, and I tend to avoid them for that very reason. Likewise, I long ago gave up on making New Years resolutions-roughly around the time in my adult life that I suddenly discovered that I had lost the ability to make solid plans for myself. Somewhere around the age of 25-26, which was right in the worst part of the 1990-1994 Recession, I discovered that every time I made plans, some factor would crop up at the very last second, and would serve to change or cancel those well-thought-out plans.
Hence, that very thing gave rise to the closing stanza of my piece: The Real World/Generation X:
But that's just part of being an adult,
and on this one truth, you should never lose focus:
Every plan you make is always subject
to change or cancellation without notice.
In the years since, that very same inability to make solid plans has only intensified, to the point, where I've essentially had to adopt a policy of simply living day by day, and also get used to the idea that even the vague plans I make generally need to be reset, recalibrated, delayed and/or rescheduled on a daily basis.
Another added source of depression is that my birthday is on New Years Eve, and yesterday I just turned 42. It's the same age that Elvis was when he fell off the Graceland toilet bowl for the last time, and the same age that Gary Coleman was when he (allegedly) fell down the stairs. It's the age, where I know that I'm now well past the halfway point in my life (no male in the recorded history of my immediate family has made it past 84, and most have died in their late sixties, or early seventies).
I never thought that I would have reached the age that I am at, with so very little to show for it, where, out of all the people I knew and grew up with, even the biggest goof-offs and fuckups have somehow managed to get further in life than I have.
The biggest problem is that after a certain number of failures, the vicious cycle of depression, self-doubt and hopelessness just begins a feedback loop that gets harder and harder to break out of, and the old pop-psychology bromides (to steal Ayn Rand's favourite expression), of magically forcing yourself to 'develop a more positive attitude' and 'fake it ’til you make it' are things that I have neither the energy nor the inherent mendacity to project.
Hence, if there's one resolution I could try to make, it's one that's both deceptively modest, but at the same time almost leviathan in size, and that is to try and find for myself a centre and a balance that I can hold on to in my life. I have lacked that for several years now, and I have come to realise that over time, that really DOES lead to a monumental, cascade failure in both your life and personality, and nearly everything: from social life, to relationships, and career, tends to follow.
In many ways, it's the realisation that my proverbial ship is drifting towards the perilous waters of the man without purpose.
So, I don't know what 2014 might hold, but I need to find that centre and that balance once again.
Hence, that very thing gave rise to the closing stanza of my piece: The Real World/Generation X:
But that's just part of being an adult,
and on this one truth, you should never lose focus:
Every plan you make is always subject
to change or cancellation without notice.
In the years since, that very same inability to make solid plans has only intensified, to the point, where I've essentially had to adopt a policy of simply living day by day, and also get used to the idea that even the vague plans I make generally need to be reset, recalibrated, delayed and/or rescheduled on a daily basis.
Another added source of depression is that my birthday is on New Years Eve, and yesterday I just turned 42. It's the same age that Elvis was when he fell off the Graceland toilet bowl for the last time, and the same age that Gary Coleman was when he (allegedly) fell down the stairs. It's the age, where I know that I'm now well past the halfway point in my life (no male in the recorded history of my immediate family has made it past 84, and most have died in their late sixties, or early seventies).
I never thought that I would have reached the age that I am at, with so very little to show for it, where, out of all the people I knew and grew up with, even the biggest goof-offs and fuckups have somehow managed to get further in life than I have.
The biggest problem is that after a certain number of failures, the vicious cycle of depression, self-doubt and hopelessness just begins a feedback loop that gets harder and harder to break out of, and the old pop-psychology bromides (to steal Ayn Rand's favourite expression), of magically forcing yourself to 'develop a more positive attitude' and 'fake it ’til you make it' are things that I have neither the energy nor the inherent mendacity to project.
Hence, if there's one resolution I could try to make, it's one that's both deceptively modest, but at the same time almost leviathan in size, and that is to try and find for myself a centre and a balance that I can hold on to in my life. I have lacked that for several years now, and I have come to realise that over time, that really DOES lead to a monumental, cascade failure in both your life and personality, and nearly everything: from social life, to relationships, and career, tends to follow.
In many ways, it's the realisation that my proverbial ship is drifting towards the perilous waters of the man without purpose.
So, I don't know what 2014 might hold, but I need to find that centre and that balance once again.