Rather than make resolutions for 2012, which I am bound to try to follow to the letter, I have decided to make a mantra this year.
Live happy, live healthy, live hungry.That's all I really want, I think.
Live happy. I'm still not a very happy individual, but I am more than I was in 2008, that's for sure. More than 2009, too. I'm not a good husband, but I am a better husband than I was in 2010. I'm not a good father, but I feel like I am getting better, rather than worse. This is something: I'll be ready to have kids when I am 45 and they have all left me. Come back! I can care for you now! I told Yoko today that part of what I think makes our family successful, at least at this point, is the rush of forward momentum. Kids bring that into your life: you are always moving forward in time. It's nice. Children are nice: they keep us equal parts sane and mad.
Live healthy. Last year I saw health in terms of a number on the scale. It is that, but the body is a complex, not a closed, simple system. Kilo-calories in and out is a beginner's guide to the body: maintenance is more complicated. I want to be healthy in the long term, not skinny in the short term. From September, things have been better though. Eating good things, not bad. Rebounding, but not returning. Muscle, not fat. No binging, less refined sugar. I want to continue this: to be stronger, but less concerned about being stronger.
Live hungry. In 2012, my PhD will end, pushing me forward into something: the unknown future, the precipice. I have been, for the last four years, paid to write, essentially. That's always been my goal and will always be my goal: to get paid to write. Having four years of it is an incredible, unimaginable gift. I have been lucky.
I'm listening to Blackout Beach's 'Fuck Death' with 7 hours left in the year. Yes, fuck death, but as we all know, death is not dead. I always worry that the next step is the step where my luck runs out, but: happy, healthy, hungry. That's about the best I think I can do for now: to the precipice, yes, what will we see at its edge.