Old Year's Dissolutions

Dissolution has many meanings. It can mean the breaking down of something, or the integration of a substance into a solvent; it can mean the final rupture of a contract, or the lax profligacy of a way of life. It can be a dismissal, a disbanding, a transition from one phase to another. It is all these things, and more.

I will choose it to mean something personal today.

I will choose it to mean the things of this year that I would cast away, or would not want to carry over to the New Year. In this sense, a dissolution might very well mean the opposite of a resolution. That would be pleasing in effect.

But here is my list of dissolutions:

• I don't like people who are late or who make people late for appointments. I hate it when I'm late. I'd rather be ridiculously early. I think I have to learn to be more tolerant. But I don't think it will be easy. I'd rather that late people just not turn up. I used to tell my students, "You're slower than my grandmother!" And I meant it; both my grandmothers have gone to glory, and they're thus my late grandmothers. Some students tried hard to be even later.
  
  
• I am not a doggy person. I am a catty person. Argh. That didn't come out right. What I mean is that I don't particularly like dogs, compared to cats. Dogs are more obvious in their loyalties, that's true. But cats are more subtle, more self-reliant; they have more pride, and also the confidence to sleep through many crises that would keep a dog up late at night. But I have realised that domestication ruined the dog, but not the cat; the wolf is a proud beast, the cat is still a cat.
  
  
• I am a terrible procrastinator. It takes me what seems like forever to do something that needs doing. Quite often, I know that it's not real procrastination. Rather, it's the need to not do things too early, so that things will be done just on time instead of making the anxiety queue shorter just for the sake of it. I hate rushing, but there's little worse than doing things today when you can do them tomorrow, only to find out tomorrow that they did not need doing at all.
  
  
• I am too affectionate. I love my quirky relatives, my friends, and make friends easily out of complete strangers. I have spent 30 years trying to make this less, and I think I have almost succeeded. I think what might really have happened, though, is that I just internalise it. I have developed a large heap of fondness in my heart for all kinds of people who may or may not deserve it. But I am a rebel against myself. I think they all deserve it, even if they laugh at me for it.
  
  
• I have a great antipathy towards some people who are deliberately unintelligent. These people have brains, but when confronted with data which should tell them something, their main reply is, "So what? It doesn't change the fact that..." Yes, it doesn't change the fact that they are determined to ignore the truth simply because their mindsets are more like concrete boots. It's either that or the atheists are right and the mind doesn't really exist at all, and there is no free will.
  

Well, that's something I'm glad I got off my chest. Tomorrow will be harder. Resolutions are often tougher to do than dissolutions. It's like watching crystals grow.