New Year's Resolutions

The word 'resolution' is an even stranger word than 'dissolution', which I referred to in one of yesterday's posts. Resolutions can be things resolved upon, things dissolved, findings of a sharper grain, answers that unfold a problem, the subsidings of medical problems, returns to congruence or consonance in language or music, analyses that give a clearer picture, defining parameters of a clearer picture, decisions, obstacles, acuities. What does it mean to be 'resolute' anyway?

I resolve, and the answers come out different.

I resolve, and the precision is increased though the accuracy is not.

I resolve, and the universe spins around me. Oops, that was a typo.

This year comes to an end, and one thing is for sure: I have to make a list of things that I set firm in my heart to do. And these, we resolve, will be my resolutions:

• I will finally get my work done and go back to a life of teaching, full-time. As always before, I find myself more a thinker than a scholar, more a teacher than an office-sir, more a gadfly than a gentle-man. These may be failings, but my gifts as I see them do not permit me to boast in my wisdom, strength or riches; I can only claim that I often tried my best, sometimes failed, but always got up to continue running.
  
  
• I will brush up on my chess openings and end-games. So far, I've got enough stuff to cover a proper study of modern chess openings and survive most normal end-games. Playing chess online with old friends is helping somewhat. I'll never be a master, but I think chess is a good discipline and helps develop the other parts of my brain which aren't normally in use when I do my usual work.
  
  
• I will embrace my white hairs. They will have their time and their place and I appreciate them a lot for what they are.
  
  
• I will absorb all the annoyances of daily life. I shall assimilate them. We shall overcome some day.
  
  
• I will learn to teach literature properly. Heh.
  
  
• I will become an Apple certified trainer. Heh heh.
  
  
• I will spend a lot more time praying for my past and present students, and my past and present colleagues. By name.
  

And thus endeth the lesson.