The Blandfill Blog

Hello, dear Blandfill readers. This is a slightly more serious post, I suppose, so you’re in for a treat!
I’d like to talk a little bit about “resolutions” that I think I’d like to adopt in my life. These are sort of like New Year’s resolutions, but different in two ways. First off, I think that 01 January of every year is a little too arbitrary to be meaningful, and it seems like overall it’s a pretty atrocious way to attempt self-changes (at least statistically speaking: Wikipedia says “Recent research shows that while 52% of participants in a resolution study were confident of success with their goals, only 12% actually achieved their goals.”);  and secondly, it’s common for New Year’s resolutions to be pretty specific: “Work out more”, “lose weight”, “get better grades”, “spend more time with family”,  ”get more sleep”, et cetera, and I’m not super interested in small specific changes.

So, Tom, what the heck are you talking about?

I’ve more or less alluded to this in previous blog posts (such as, in chronological order, pursuit, advance, funny, ‘trospection) but college has really helped me confront myself and my beliefs and such – not so much politically or religiously, but personally and emotionally. Living at home with my family was a sort of painful box for me; not because of anyone in particular’s fault, but because of my overall situation; and though I numbed to the pain and managed to “be good at stuff” to whatever extent university admissions folks think is important, it’s only since I’ve come here, living without my family, with my roommates, in a new community, that I’ve been able at all to address bigger questions.

I’ve been thinking about ways I’d like to change myself, become better, perform self-improvement — whatever the hell you feel like calling it — and the following “pieces of thought” (they happen to be cartoons) struck a chord in my mind.

I'd never carefully read the words in this comic until recently -- the bottom panels are pretty distracting.

The words sounded pretty but I never really believed I could apply them to myself.

And, with more levity! (and less seriousness)

This one's cute.

By now you can tell I'm a silly xkcd nerd.

That was a pretty intense xkcd interlude (thanks Randall!)

By now, dear reader, I’m sure you’re dying to know what I think, not what Mr. Munroe thinks, so here I go. This is hard to really describe in words, but here are my goals, as best as I can describe them:

To be honest, diligent; to accept defeat and take risks. To be proactive, and to explore. To open up and be free.

To take control of my life, in the face of pressures. To have the discipline and maturity to act when needed; to bring my actions in line with my heart.

To understand myself and the circumstances which have shaped me, my beliefs and opinions, my habits, my fears. To reflect and self-analyze so that I can overcome the ways I subconsciously and intentionally limit myself, and so I can discover what I really find worthwhile.

Heh, that almost sounds like a prayer. It’s what I want, though. As abstract as it all sounds, I think I might be making a bit of progress — but I’m struggling still. I think I’ve taken the first steps this school year: I joined the Kendo club (which is perhaps as much about self-development as it is a competitive sport), and the astronomy club (which, as I’ve noted before, is a pretty swell way to stare at the Universe while simultaneously introspecting in the peaceful, dark silence of stargazing). I took spontaneous leadership of a silly physics-related event and ran for office in physics club. Further, though, I’ve been getting more serious about my studies and about my learning process in general, doing my best to dig for true understanding rather than cheap grades. (I’m still struggling very much here — physics problem sets have been taxing my sleep at a very very high rate Thursday nights and I haven’t quite figured out yet how to effectively redistribute the load throughout my week; also, I’ve noticed that sleep deprivation makes me hate myself.) I’ve reached out a bit socially and made a few new friends (and, er, eroded my inhibitions somewhat when it comes to girls — ? This is an in-progress thing I suppose). A few small things here and there that I would never have been able to follow through on before. I’ve gained a bit of insight into what I might like to do for the rest of my life — and started to think very hard about all the things I’d like to do in the meantime. I’m starting to believe that the kind of career I end up with is far less important than the kind of person I turn out to be. (And yet I wonder whether maybe it’s only because I likely have almost certain “success” in my future that I can say something so naive.) These are all grand ideas, and I am a small person. Yet, I figure: I am young enough to still have time left to both think hard about this stuff and follow through on my conclusions; and I am finally old enough (?) to have the maturity and experience required to start work on these questions.

So! Anyways! This has been a long post, my dear friend, and I hope it wasn’t too tedious for you. My overall message, I suppose, is that the reason I don’t have specific goals is, mostly, because I don’t yet know what I want to achieve. But I know that whatever I encounter in my life, I’d like to have this new spirit to be part of me. Thank you for reading, and may you have a pleasant day. (:

Epilogue:

Some notes about myself today. I did a CS pset! It involved mad recursion, higher-order functions, and symbolic differentiation (I never thought I would program stuff like that!). Also, Charles and Duncan and I worked out. Tomorrow I’ll do some physics and maybe practice my saxophone. Hey, dear readers, quick note: We at the Blandfill really love you, and we love you even more when you leave comments! So please leave comments on our blog whenever you have a thought.

Final note: I listened to this song a bunch of times today and it is pretty swell!