The New Year is upon us. I have much to look forward to in 2010 as I’m sure do you! I’m excited that the year-end reviews are over and I can stop being reminded of events I hardly recall and return to largely glazing over almost anything that isn’t directly affecting me. I find those things to be unimportant in my life as I think do most people. By the way it's been proclaimed by the National Association of Good Grammar that this year and henceforth we shall refer to the years properly, by their centurian order. So this being the 21st century, the year is Twenty Ten, not 2,010.
I saw one good idea, which was making a list of Un-resolutions if you will. Things which one person will strive not to do. Consequently I feel I’m qualified to propose a list that the country at large might strive to accomplish:
5 Things to Make 2010 Better than 2009
1) I’d hope to see no murders this year (too late you say?)
Apparently the cities of Denver, New York, and San Francisco all experienced multiple murders within the first three days of the year.
2) No more epidemics please- Swine, Bird, and Seasonal Flu’s all have run rampant and with sanitizers becoming more prevalent, more virulent strains are appearing.
3) Lets keep it zipped up fellas- Can we go twelve months without a political scandal revolving around which man isn’t being faithful to his wife. At this point the only people we can hold accountable publicly are those who we elect to be accountable so for twelve months lets try and not embarrass ourselves shall we? And I Know it won’t stop happening so lets just not talk about it for 12 months.
4) Amber alerts are so last decade- I hate to hear that a child has gone missing. I truly feel that a parent whose child is abducted needs to be forced to watch "Taken", then be publicly shamed for insufficient parenting. And the way the media only covers young, blonde, females just makes the whole thing shameful anyway. If my child was snatched I can guaran-DAMN-tee you I wouldn’t sleep until I found her. Shouts to my man Liam Neeson and his family BTW.
5) Technologic- We can Tweet it, text it, blog it, vlog it, app it, droid it, trend it, and #hash it. Life is becoming one big Daft Punk song, and even for me that’s getting annoying. I need us to return to full syllabic annunciation. I enjoy hearing languages even If I don’t understand them, because slang in the U.S. is so prevalent.
Alternately I tweet now! I find it to be a LOT like sex. Everyone was doing it, I heard it was fun/cool but had no clue as to how true that was and therefore was apprehensive to try. If you don’t like it, you’re not doing it right I’ve found in both cases. There are some people you’ll watch do it, and others you wont. Sex is supposed to last hours in myth but the best stuff is concise and to the point. We use twitter to say the things we wish we could say in public. I have a great love of twitter and it all makes sense now as to why. The two don’t mix by the way. I’ll spare you the obligatory joke about tweets and twats here.
A photo a day is my new project. If I had one wish it would be to see where all the things I’ve lost have gone. That being impossible I will now preemptively record what I can and at least have that record to look at. Dan Cronin says it best in his tweet last week, “How is the battle between my face and the ravages of time going? Well, the ravages of time is sitting its starters.”
I think I finished 2009 in a rather unexpected way, I had a lot of momentum with this project and others but because I ran into some unforeseen news, I kind of listed into 2010. I didn’t even make my goal of getting to bed by 10:30 PM on the 31st. Though I did see a good friend of mine while also getting a good nights sleep, so in the end I’m not unhappy with the way things turned out. The topic I tried to wrestle in my last couple posts I feel is left half done but can be distilled into basically two camps; those that support revenge and those that do not.
I’ve found some quotes by minds that I respect to help end this argument and though my gut feeling about the matter may be swayed somewhat based on these I think in the moment, I’m always going to crave the natural reaction. Any moment that calls for true revenge is a moment in which I fully embrace the animalistic nature of being and have no urge to deny it. I literally salivated at the thought of revenge. Read on and choose for yourself. I don’t think any of this is bad advice.
“I consider it a mark of great prudence in a man to abstain from threats or any contemptuous expressions, for neither of these weaken the enemy, but threats make him more cautious, and the other excites his hatred, and a desire to revenge himself - Niccolo Machiavelli
Revenge is Sweet and Not fattening. - Alfred Hitchcock
Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries - for heavy ones they cannot” - Niccolo Machiavelli
“A man need never revenge himself, the body of his enemy will be brought to his own door” - Chinese Proverb
“Before you embark on the journey of revenge, dig two graves.” - Confucious
“If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that - Bill Shakespeare
"The Avenger fears his actions like the Ash fears the flame" - JT-Rex
I’ve spoken before about including things regularly but I’ve realized there is no way I can do that as often as I’d like. So I apologize. I never know what I am going to write until it’s written. (That very last sentence was redone four times.) Today I’m writing an entry just to update you, when I have a sufficient topic I’ll post an essay, and In a last ditch effort to entertain I may post just photo’s. But a formulaic system isn’t appealing to me so I hope this works for everyone. I have been so busy with the real world I haven’t even had time to escape it, except for the two to three hours I spent wishing I was an Avatar. James Cameron made every woman in America wish she had been on a sinking ship and now has made me wish I was twice as tall and Blueish. He is a miracle worker indeed.
And to all those who say revenge is a dish best left un-served I offer only this list. Those who knew their actions, defined themselves by them, and were ultimately willing to stand up for what they were about to do because to them, in the moment, and for the future, it was the only right choice. The absence of action isn’t always a statement of indifference.
Beatrix Kiddo, Clyde Shelton, Aldo Raine, Bruce Wayne, Lorena Bobbitt, Harry S. Truman, Hamlet, William Tell, Shylock, and of course my brother…Oedipus.
If you disagree, be sure that I am not talking to you, and I’m quite sure they aren’t either.
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