3 New Years Resolutions

for you, not for me

Hopefully, you have fallen off the wagon of your new years resolutions, making room for my new years resolutions. These are not my new years resolutions in the sense of “New Years Resolutions I have made for myself,” but rather “New Years Resolutions that express my will for your life and that I have made on your behalf, unsolicited.” But rest assured that I have done all of these things, with interesting and highly beneficial results; each has increased my personal happiness and self-sufficiency. They are easy and you could do them all in a week or 10 months; they are mostly things you could check off and then decide if you’d want to try them (or a version of them) again.

I do wish I could say the timing is intentional, borne of a deep insight into your inability to adhere to your resolutions. But it’s probably more a product of my being out of step with any sense of some liturgical calendar and the deep rhythms of the earth. For another example of this, see this autumn-themed poem I wrote last spring. (A general resolution for myself is to become in touch with the seasons and nature in general. Coincidentally, Resolution #1 helps with this collaterally.)

Resolution 1 is replacing a necessary commute or errand that you’d normally drive with walking or biking (not as a permanent substitution for all time, just something to try out once). This can be a trip to work or the convenience store for something you need, or a visit to a friend. The point is that you walk or bike and that it’s a trip to a specific destination. I’m not telling you to take a long walk for the sake of walking; I’m telling you to get someplace you have to get to, by walking. Do it once, see what it’s like, and check it off the list.

Resolution 2 is to memorize a passage or poem–a few sentences, a few paragraphs, or a stanza or two. Get it so you can quote something word for word without having to look at it. “Done” on this one is a little harder to define, but I’d say if you can quote almost the whole thing, without prompting, at least a day since the last time you read or heard it, that counts. Pick something you like, that’s meaningful to you, maybe something for which you’ve already memorized a couple words or a phrase by accident because it stood out to you. That way, it’s already started to stick. See what it’s like, check it off your list.

Resolution 3 is to take 20-30 minutes, a pen and paper, and draw a picture of your non-dominant hand, held in a position of your choosing. Hands are interesting and you have a subject that’s always contained within yourself, no need to go anywhere or pull out your phone and search an image (which is what I usually do when I want to draw a picture). Hands in particular are challenging, interesting, and useful subjects. I use them a lot, and the foundation of doing so came from making sketches. Furthermore, I particularly recommend sketching with short and imperfect lines–it will be wrong to start, but as you compare the lines you put down to the actual shape, contours, and wrinkles of your hand, you will know better how to draw it properly. If you use a pen, you can’t erase bad lines, and that’s good because it helps you be less precious about the process and outcome. But also the discrepancy between the line that you thought you saw, and the actual line (or something that creates a similar enough effect) will help you lay down the next one properly. When you see a line or stretch of lines you like, you can go back over them, which can make for a satisfying boldness. The net effect is that you can get something that approximates a hand but also distorts it in interesting ways, which is in some sense the purpose of art.

This practice has also made me more aware of the value and meaning of my own hands in particular, and of the human hand in general. A quote by the primatolagist Frans De Waal comes to mind here: “Who knows how much of our own cognition is tied to the specifics of our bodies, such as our hands? Would we have evolved the same technical skills and intelligence without these supremely versatile appendages?” Could be worth memorizing on a walk to the grocery store.

If you do any of these, I’d be interested to hear about it (Perhaps, if you send me a picture of a hand sketch, I can adorn it with some original block printing, pen, or watercolor work and send it back to you). Regardless, I promise these resolutions will be easier than waking up at 4AM every day to work out for 3 hours, or cutting meat/carbs/fat/sugar/food out of your diet, or finally kicking that pesky illicit drug habit.