Misgivings and Resolution

I set out alone on the vast sea of the blogosphere in the very small boat of trytoactnormal.com because I felt I had better do it. Notwithstanding the time of year, I didn’t mean it as a New Year’s resolution, and I hardly feel resolute today. As I bob my way toward the mouth of the harbor, established blogs I read make me feel like I’m passing under the prow of great warships with names like Resolute, Indomitable, Defiant. Will my stores keep me going until I get somewhere? Will the people I meet value what I say or dismiss my trade goods as the cheap and obvious beads I worry they may be?

Small boat on large seaThis project is so large! I want to learn, go places, follow links, dig into the technical aspects of WordPress, amuse, intrigue, educate. Look what I found! I want to say.

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions because of my sense that to do so uses up some of the energy the resolver may need to accomplish the goal. I agree completely with Lori Deschene that the time of year is arbitrary. The resolution you made remains in the past, which is gone. The score sheet of how well you have done so far and how it may go in the future is a rainbow out of reach over the horizon. What’s real is right now.

Alan Lakein expressed this idea in Lakein’s question: What is the best use of my time right now?

For the moment, I think the best use of my time is to keep doing this. But should I get help? Brendan took companions with him, but I admired Jessica Watson’s courage and accomplishment as she sailed around the world alone, and over the years I have gravitated toward solitary pursuits (writing, running, cycling).

Whatever. Rather than debate with myself staffing, or whether the point of what I am doing is to discover a new world, or to proclaim a message to someone, or just to sail all the way around and get back to where I started from, I shall keep going, and see what comes up.

Image courtesy of Juliancolton2 via Flickr.

2 Replies to “Misgivings and Resolution”

  1. Would like to read more of your musings. Perhaps you should follow Billy Collins’s idea and sail alone around the room. And then there’s that wonderful monologue at the beginning of “Zoo Story.”

    1. I disagree re: the zoo story. that guy sounded rigid and psychotic from his first utterance. This blog is so appealing because it is intelligent and lucid and flexible enough to accommodate self-doubt.

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