2009 Resolutions

My resolutions for 2009 are the same as they were for 2008.

My mind always contains a jumbled list of aspirations for better discipline when it comes to fitness, diet, reading, work, finances, gardening, cooking, writing, etc, but I don’t believe that codifying lists of tiny goals is very helpful. Last year I tried to come up with a short list of admirable behaviors that transcend everything I do and will hopefully (magically?) make me awesomer at life.

They are:

• Listen more
• No idle chatter
• Live in the moment

Listen more

This one’s easy.

This is how you learn. I’ve got a lot to learn, and I’ve got a lot of great people around me. If I listen to them, I’ll learn a lot of great things. Also, this is how you make friends.

No idle chatter

This is advice from the Buddha, taken from the idea of “right speech” which is a component of The Noble Eightfold Path. It’s also informed by Orwell’s assertion in “Politics and the English Language” that “[our language] becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.”

Avoiding idle chatter means not just that I should curtail my own senseless ramblings, but also avoid the endless ocean of frivolity that I swim through on the Internet every day (anyone note the irony that I’m writing this on my own blog? *sigh*). It’s a matter of cutting out the noise, and it seems to become more essential every day.

I got a New Yorker cartoon daily calendar for Christmas, and the first cartoon seems uncannily in line with this resolution:

Live in the moment

This resolution dovetails quite a bit with “Listen more,” but speaks more to the belief that there’s always something to learn from the present, even if someone isn’t talking. And regardless of learning, I can’t enjoy the present if my mind is elsewhere. I need to free up my attention, both from my mind and my senses.

A cursory reading of Getting Things Done last year taught me that—paradoxically—allowing my brain to live in the moment requires a lot of planning. Once I can organize all of my tasks and goals somewhere outside of my head, I don’t have to spend my days thinking about what I have to do, I can simply think about doing it. Then I can get to the wonderful place described by Philip Glass in this month’s Esquire:

“When you’re really working, really playing tennis, lifting weights, playing basketball, or whatever it is—it happens in sports, it happens in music, it happens in everything—when you’re fully consumed with the act, the witness just disappears. And for that reason, when someone asks, ‘What was it like?’ you can’t remember, because the person inside of you who does the remembering was otherwise occupied.”

When it comes to freeing my senses, I often think of a conversation I had with Steve Boyer a few years ago about an art project that I’ve been working on. He shared his concerns about how people constantly separate themselves from their present setting by staring at screens rather than their surroundings. These screens are becoming ubiquitous: TVs in every room of the house, DVD players in cars, TVs at the gas pump, smartphones, etc. I don’t know if this is a bad thing per se, but I’ve developed an aversion to it—I can’t help but think that I’m slipping into the matrix. The goal here is to make sure that I’m not compulsively noodling on my iPhone when I should be playing with my cats, or eating sandwiches with Shannon, or actually looking where I’m going while I walk down the street.

That’s it. Here’s to 2009! Let’s kick it off with some Hafiz!

Every Movement

I rarely let the word “No” escape
From my mouth

Because it is so plain to my soul

That God has shouted, “Yes! Yes! Yes!”
To every luminous movement in Existence.