Arthur Penn vs the World! … Or Maybe Just My Blog

It’s that time of the year again when most of us wake up feeling a lot like Rambo. You know, that indestructible feeling you get when you literally hop out of bed and shout, “Bring it on, world! Take yer best shot!”, then make a mad dash for the bathroom, where, you will look at yourself in the mirror (after you’ve emptied your bladder, of course, because that’s why you had to run to the bathroom in the first place), square your shoulders, and recite the New Year’s Litany:

2015 is going to be MY year.

This year WILL be different.

This year, I will …

This year, I won’t …

When you’re done with your little recital, you’ll feel obligated to make the commitment official. You will run out of the bathroom (again) and head back to your room, where you’ll fish out your tiny red notebook from the drawer where you dumped all your college books after you graduated. You’ll grab a pen and before you start writing anything on your notebook, you’ll rummage through your closet looking for a vest and cargo pants,  put them on, then look for shoe polish, which you will proceed to smear all over your face (or maybe, just your cheeks). Now that you’ve got your pen in hand and your Rambo look complete, you’re ready to begin:

THIS YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS

1. To slay the beast.

I think that it’s important to remind yourself why you write. It’s what keeps you going even when you think that what you’re writing feels like crap. I used to have that reason, that driving force, which pushed me want to write, but over the last few months I forgot about it. I didn’t remind myself often enough why I write. The self-doubt got to me, and I became crippled in a way…

So I want to change that. I know that it won’t be easy, and that some of my reasons may not be as noble as most people’s, but at least they are mine.

I write because I like to wonder.

And I write because it’s fun.

I write to lose myself,

 And I write to find myself.

But most of all,

I write because, my life would be incomplete –

If I just … stopped.

2. To get on with it.

I have to admit that I am a perfectionist. I spend too much time thinking about how I’m going to say what I want to say, instead of just saying it. I over-think things, which means that I don’t allow myself to make mistakes. But mistakes are important; they are the growing pains you experience as you improve your writing, and I have to learn to be okay with those mistakes. I need to let go of the worry and actually write something, instead of spending what sometimes feels like an eternity thinking about whether I should have started with this resolution instead of the first one.

3. To take the road less travelled.

I think it’s important to keep pushing yourself to explore unfamiliar territory; to try something new every so often. So I’ve decided that this year will most likely be a year of firsts: first attempt at writing (halfway/minutely) decent poetry, first attempt at writing something with less than 500 words, and maybe, just maybe, a first attempt at writing a romantic story (the one thing I’m not looking forward to doing).

4. To take up tree hugging.

I love blogging. I love coming here every day to silently stalk my favourite bloggers. I love being able to meet (or watch from a distance) all these fantastic people I’d never have the chance to interact with in my physical world. Sometimes it feels like walking into a crowded room full of people you’ve never met before and being swallowed up by hugs. It’s probably one of the best feelings in the world, and I’d like to keep on doing this forever (or more realistically, until I run out of ideas).

5. To shed some skin.

I want to write about goats about as much as I want to write about the secret, extraordinary lives of garden variety slugs. However, to do that, I’d first have to move things around a bit and change this tiny corner of the internet known as my blog. To be honest, I don’t know how much things will change (or not change), but I hope that I’ll be able to figure things out this year as I go along.

Now that you’ve made the commitment official, you can rest easy knowing that this will haunt you for the rest of this year. But, on the bright side, your scoreboard looks something like this:

Remember when I said that I wanted to experiment more?

Oh, and by the way … while walking around with shoe polish on your face may be all the rage this season, it might be a good idea not to leave it there for too long – I, er, forgot to tell you about its possible side-effects.

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Image credit: Simpson’s Rambo