In short, I am trying to not say things like “I want to write more in 2018”.
I started writing this a few weeks ago. I wanted to get through this, because I learned that it was easier for me to think through resolutions, but much harder to just hone in on the feelings.
I know some of the things I want to do more (or less) in 2018: Play the violin more regularly, write more, spend more time with mom, etc. Then when I tried to expand on the why behind this actions, I struggled. Why do I want to play the violin more? I am not planning to perform again. It is not really about showing my kids this skill of mine. It’s actually far less calming than I expected. So why?
So here we go, after weeks of tinkering and ingesting drugs and many failed attempts at getting into a lotus position, 3 ways I want to feel more in 2018.
(1) Feeling more “in the middle”
(2) Feeling “the kind of happiness from looking at anything Nintendo in Japanese brings me.”
(3) Feeling more “useful more consistently”
“In the middle”
Perhaps this means I want to feel fewer ups and downs. I am not entirely sure yet. I have learned that ups could make me delusional. Ups could make me lose perspective. Ups also encourage me to do more, to repeat, to continue, and that could be dangerous when I am less aware of my blind spots. That urge to keep doing could take me further away from other perspectives/the realities. Downs limit. They make me question myself. They linger and drag. So how do I feel more in the middle? I don’t want to be numb either. Therefore I think this will be a good journey to start in 2018.
“The kind of happiness from looking at anything Nintendo in Japanese brings me.”
This is a bit strange. Every time when I see things like Nintendo’s tweets in Japanese, I feel this simple happiness + positive nostalgia. It’s great to feel happy so instantly and easily, and so what I am trying to achieve is to hack and replicate this feeling. I think I know where this stems from, but I have also learned that buying and playing the Switch won’t cut it (An excessive amount of retro shoes old Star Wars toys and 80s music have taught me this). Therefore it will be a meaningful journey to try to get a handle on this very particular feeling.
“Useful more consistently”
As I was going through the list of things I want to do more (or less) in 2018, I realized many of them all pointed to this feeling of being more useful: Useful to the world, to others, to my wife/kids, etc. Or, just less useless. There were days I really didn’t think I was that useful to anything, anyone. At the same time, I also know there were days where the conversations I had was meaningful to others, or the work I got to do was purposeful.
This journey has been very annoying so far because to me it is hard. It’s also very annoying because feelings are so fragile and elusive. Oh well, if this doesn’t really work out the way I imagine, I still have the good old list of “2018 New Year Resolutions” to fall back on.
Leave a Reply