Same shit, different year?

I don't put much stock in New Year's Resolutions as a concept. I don't recall ever making one. But right now I certainly have things to resolve and it happens to be a new year so...

It's time to take the test I think. Time to break out of the slump. Time to put up or shut up. For about six years now I've been diddling around with half-ass weight loss attempts and writing endeavors that are concentrated at times and marked by significant progress but only intermittently. I've taken too many holidays.

My goals are pretty simple I think. To achieve spiritual enlightenment; To come to some sort of peace with this society of ours that currently seems more and more foreign to me all the time; To capture this learning in literature and to get that literature out there - accessible to others who might be on the same kind of journey - who might find it relevant; To make some money at that of course - nothing sinful about making money in responsible quantity; And to put myself in a healthy body so that I might live long enough to achieve all this.

Does that sound reasonable?

I'm finally at a point in life where these goals all seem perfectly accessible to me. But inherently I'm massively lazy. Massively. You have no idea. I'm the absolute All-High Emperor of Procrastination.

Health, Enlightenment, Success. I feel like the pathways are clear before me. Like I can see the pinnacles in the distance. Like I need only put one foot in front of the other (while blissfully ignorant of awaiting pitfalls, granted). But at the pace I'm on - in the state of health that I am - I will surely die before reaching these goals. I will die. And yet I toddle in low gear as if with no motivation. Isn't that ridiculous? Why am I such a pathetic sloth?

Why?

This is the question for 2007. Here's the resolution: Either find the answer this year - or give up.

I will begin to steadily and permanently repair my health and I will start treating writing as the job that it is (albeit a labor of love, certainly) and reap the spiritual rewards that such discipline opens the doors to.

OR:

I will resign myself to a post-300lb shortened existence in which I'll put up with this society and feed it whatever kind of literature I happen to muster as the mood strikes me and hope it gets commercially published and try to forget about the idea of enlightenment.

So there.

As for this blog: Sorry for this unentertaining piece but this is my diary after all. My journal. And I need it to fulfill a role for me. I need to make it a place for occasional confession. My assumption is that I possess a strong enough ego that public embarrassment will help to serve as motivation toward my goals. I certainly have other motivations but apparently I need as many as I can get! So I will occasionally publish my progress or lack-thereof in the form of brief statistics (minutes of exercise, pounds lost/gained, words written - that sort of thing). If you see me failing please feel free to mock me and viciously so! Heck - use the Comments section to post your own progress toward your own goals if you want! We'll make it a support group!

The (hopefully) humorous dissertations will continue here. I have little inclination to attempt humorous writing in any formal sense so this blog provides the perfect (and necessary) outlet.

That's all. Let the test begin.