Rhubarb Pie

2010: The Year of.....

There are a few things I will be focusing on in 2010.  I am happy in my home life and my work life, and I am getting back into a pattern of exercise that is starting to feel good again.  So my hope is that I can attend to other things without screwing any of that up.  

I've been thinking about Fun, as I wrote a little while ago.  I'd like to have More Fun in 2010.  I realized that I haven't quite learned what is fun for me at this stage of my life -- there are things I used to love doing, and some of them I might want to do more of, but some of them don't sound like fun right now (e.g. gathering a ton of friends to meet out at a bar, or come over to play games).  Those don't sound awful, but they aren't necessarily the best way for me to have fun at this stage of life.  On Christmas Eve some friends and I walked to the pond in the park in the center of town and went ice skating, and then came home for an afternoon of cooking and hot cider.  That was fun.  I think I can have more fun by taking more excursions, planning more adventures, participating in more pranks.  I think it's kind of fun to play cards with people.  When I sat down and thought about fun I thought about a few categories of fun: there's solo fun, couple fun, and fun with friends.  I think that in the late 30s "fun with friends" changes, so noticing how and when the different opportunities for fun show up will be something I pay more attention to this year.  "Couple fun" is tricky, too -- there's lots of contentment in cooking together and curling up with our books or a video, but that's not quite what I mean by "fun."  Ice skating, swing dancing, and walking a few blocks to see the Red Claws play: those seem like good bits of fun we can add, and I think paying more attention will yield more ideas.  And then there's solo fun.  It was really easy for me to identify what is fun for me by myself.  I like to take the dogs on rambly walks.  But the thing that immediately jumps out as the most fun thing I can spend my time doing is going to be the biggest focus of 2010: The Brain. 

The Year of the Brain (Comic Book).  What is really, really fun for me is to learn about the brain.  And the funnest way for me to learn something is to draw cartoons about the concepts and how they relate to one another.  When I thought about how I might have more fun the obvious answer was to spend the year learning as much as I can about the brain -- specifically, cognition and decision-making, and the systematic flaws or limitations that seem to be part of the way we process information and make meaning out of it.  What I care a lot about is how people make sense of the world and how they can make better decisions -- that's why I like the job I'm in right now, and that's what I am curious about when I read the books I read.  I am not sure if what I need is psychology or neuroscience or philosophy -- I've been checking books out of all three areas of the library.  When I'm further along on this project I think I'll have some better ideas about which field I'm most specifically interested in, but for now there's a lot of reading and drawing I need to do just to start asking the right questions.  I don't know or care right now whether anyone will ever want to read my comic book about how to use your brain better, but I know that learning enough to figure out what goes in it, and drawing the pictures to tell whatever story I've arrived at, will be the most fun I can have by myself.  I'm cheating by starting early, gobbling up lectures on DVD by a Vanderbilt neuroscientist.  Actually, I started on this years ago, in 1994 when I first read The Moral Animal.  But 2010 is the year I'm going to do it in a more specific, focused way.  (Want to see some pictures of what I'm talking about? Here you go.)

It's also going to be the Year of Using My Power For Good.  I hope it won't be the only year of that.  I spend a lot of time doing volunteer work of one sort or another, and I've been thinking about that, just as I've been thinking about Fun.  I want that time to be more meaningful than it has been so far.  I have a law degree, and a license to practice, so I've been going to the district court about once a month to help people get protection from abuse orders.  I'm not sure it's the best way for me to help, although I do think that, mostly, I've helped make something hard a little tiny bit easier for some people.  That feels good, but it's not as good as it could be if I were doing something slightly different with my time.  I have some ideas that might be a better use of my time and my brain and my law license, but I'm not quite sure how to make those things work yet.  I'm also on the board of a nonprofit that I started, with my dad, a long time ago.  I've been doing a lot to help that organization, but I'm still not sure I'm doing enough, or doing the right sorts of things.  Finally, at work, I think mostly what I do is useful, and if I can do it well I am helping some people who need it.  But I think there are ways I'm not using all of my power -- that sounds groovy, but I don't want to get more specific just yet.  I'm trying to think about how to be a better advocate for my students in particular, and for people looking for jobs more generally.  There are some charlatans out there, ready to prey on the confusion and insecurity of people who aren't sure whether or how they will get hired.  I don't like those folks very much, and I'm trying to figure out what my role in that landscape should be.  So this idea has a couple of components.  One is "Use My Power" -- by which I mean, the things that I do especially well, that are different than what other people offer, that make me feel fulfilled when I exercise them.  And the other is "For Good," by which I mean, well, to help the world in some way that feels meaningful.  I'm not sure what the scope of that kind of contribution should be.  Something that makes me different from you is that I seem to be blindedly devoted to individuals.  I can't think about groups or populations, at least not while retaining any passion or sense of purpose.  I'm not very capable of abstraction, even though I'm reasonably smart, and can fake being logical and rational pretty well if necessary.  I care about individuals, not groups.  I haven't figured out how to be efficient and effective and to make as broad a contribution as possible when that seems to be my mindset.  

 I need to sit down and review 2009, so we can all set our expectations about these goals appropriately low.  I didn't cure Crohn's disease, or read all of Shakespeare, or even do a very good job planning my reading.  But I have more to say about all of that, so I'll write that down in the next couple of days. 

I Failed

My thoughts are turning to next year, and I'm starting to think about what I will declare 2010 is the Year Of.  Which is impossible to do without also thinking of what I declared 2009 to be the Year Of.  2009 is the Year of Shakespeare, the Year of Planned Reading, and the Year of the Definitive Cure. 

I have much to say about each one of these, but my purpose of logging in tonight was to declare, officially, that I have FAILED to make 2009 the Year of Shakespeare.  Mark that one squarely in the loss category. 

I have been NOT reading Shakespeare for months now.  I started with a bang, early, and concluded from the ease of the early reading that making 2009 the Year of Shakespeare would be a cinch.  In fact, I decided, it was easy enough that I could postpone it until later, and instead read stuff that I actually wanted to read.  Reading the complete works of Shakespeare would be easy to squeeze in later.  No problem. 

But then I continued to not read Shakespeare.  I will tell you about what I read instead, in another post, and how it relates to the second goal I set, which was to make 2009 the Year of Planned Reading.  But essentially, 11 months of not reading Shakespeare got me to the point where three days ago I declared December to be the Month of Shakespeare.  I read Shakespeare's poems on my iPod in the airport.  I can still do this, I thought.  

But I know what I want to read tonight, and it is not Shakespeare.  I have a pile of books ready, and they are not Shakespeare.  I still think that I *could* read the complete works of Shakespeare.  I even think that I *should* read the complete works of Shakespeare.  It is perhaps true that I *will* read the complete works of Shakespeare.  But it would be stupid to read them crammed into a month, under duress and resenting it, when I have books that delight me that I actually want to read right now, here in my hands.  I would rather admit that this was not the Year of Shakespeare.  

The truth is that I don't remember the Shakespeare that I did read this year.  I think I read three or four plays and several dozen sonnets and some poems.  It was easy reading: clever, funny, evocative.  But I was reading to turn pages and to check a box, not because I cared about the material.  I think that's a bad way to spend my time.  And I feel lame and lazy, but I also feel pretty certain, because I'd rather declare the whole year a failure than resign myself to a dutiful regime of daily pages for the last month of the year.  That seems like a dismal approach to Shakespeare and, worse, a waste of precious reading time.  

So, I'm going to leave the big Shakespeare at my bedside sitting there, where it's been for so many months.  Tonight I'll pick up the book that I look forward to, and when I'm done with that I'll pick up the other one I've been excited to read.  I hope that someday I read the complete works of Shakespeare, but this year, the fact is, I didn't really want to after all.  This probably means that I am not only unsophisticated and semi-literate, but also lacking discipline and willpower.  Fair enough. I wish that weren't true about me, but probably it is.  But I get to spend perhaps 7 hours a week reading for fun, which is not nearly enough to get through everything I aspire to read.  Those hours should be a treat, not a chore.  If I get to Shakespeare a little bit at a time, that's okay.   

Self Improvement Update

Year of Shakespeare: no change.  I think this is twofold -- I am convinced it will not be very hard to read all of Shakespeare this year, and I needn't push it.  Also, I still don't have the right reading chair, and so I'm postponing Shakespeare until that chair is in place.  Everything else about my new reading nook is set up: the lighting is right, the bookshelf is right nearby, with the Shakespeare books stacked up neatly and a pile of index cards and some pens there within reach.  I even bought a chair at a used furniture store, but the narrow little steep staircase up to this garret room proved too tight for the chair, so I had to return it.  Soon.

Year of Planned Reading.  Hmmm.  I've been reading a lot.  A LOT.  More than in a long time.  But I'm not so sure about the Planned part.  I've gotten away from my disciplined preservation of daylight reading time.  I haven't stuck to the Plan -- I've been grabbing books opportunistically at the library, or ordering things on interlibrary loan and reading them ahead of others because of their due dates.  I've been fiddling around with my Kindle and reading different books on there than I would read in hardcover.  I've been doing a lot of reading related to the Year of the Cure, and some reading related to my job.  I should sit down and list what I've been reading, or even try to take a look at all the books I have checked out of the library right now and impose some intention on the pile.  Reading, yes.  Planned? Not so much.  In honor of my good intentions, I'm going to devote the next two hours to reading, as soon as I finish up this post.  

Year of the Cure. This is complicated.  I know a lot more than last time I wrote, because of all the reading I've been doing.  Maybe.  I certainly know more about the architecture of the small and large intestines, and the chemistry of digestion.  I'm not sure I understand it at a level that would let me make meaningful decisions.  I have some choices to make, and I have some misgivings about the different options.  I am not sure what my course of action should be.  I don't think I've found the right allies and advisors.  I don't know if it matters.  I think my disease is mild and will probably always be.  Maybe this shouldn't be my big fight.  Maybe medicating it and doing more interesting things is the right approach.  On the other hand, I have a Big Idea that I think might help lots of people.  Implementing it would take a huge amount of energy and some money and a lot of time.  This deserves its own post, which I will write a little bit later.  Another day, probably.  Tonight I need to read.  

2009: Year of __________

Wowsers.  2009: Year of Pregnancy for Megan.  I like it, very much.  If you leave the skate park and I stay there, we must do what we can to make sure we don't get tetchy with one another, or, on the contrary, overly effusive about how much we support the other's divergent choice.  I actually don't think that will be very hard, knowing you and me as I do.  Anyway, my 3 projects are not as ambitious as your one.  Nonetheless, I'm excited.

1) Year of Shakespeare.  I'm going to read all of Shakespeare this year.  I read Comedy of Errors this weekend, plus a bunch of sonnets.  Plus an editor's exposition on the sonnets, telling me what I should think about them.  Perhaps I won't do too much more of that sort of reading.  I'm halfway through As You Like It, and I can tell you I do like it, very much.  I have more to say about the Shakespeare project, and about the Shakespeare I'm reading, but I'll do that in other posts. 

2) Year of Planned Reading.  I'm much more excited about this than I am about the Shakespeare project, although it is odder and less specific and more dorky than the Shakespeare project.  It sprung from the Shakespeare idea, because I have no real idea how to go about reading all of Shakespeare and started considering how to do it well -- what order, which editions, should I read critical essays or not, and if so, before, during, or after the original works??  Also, how long will this take, and when will I do it?  So I had to think about a plan for my reading, which otherwise just sort of happens before bed or stolen moments of unplanned time.  And then I got excited.  What if I actually PLAN to read, and block off time for my reading goals, and progress through my booklists with some order and some discipline instead of picking up books whimsically?  This is related to my intensifying interest in brains and psychology and neuroscience and philosophy -- whatever field it turns out to be that I've been hacking away at with undiminished curiosity for the last 10 years.  This year I will give my interest a little more respect, and make room for it to flourish.  I have a lot more to say about the Year of Planned Reading, but I'll save it for another post.  Well, I'll just say a few quick things.  Some components include: 5 hours blocked for reading per week, in addition to bedtime reading and stolen moments reading.  3 hours on Saturday afternoons, 2 hours on Wednesdays (or perhaps a different weeknight, depending on the other events of the week).  Also, I am plotting to buy a Kindle, which I've been coveting for almost a year.  And, I just checked this book out of the library, and even as musty and brown and dull as the cover is, even though it's library due date stamp indicates that I am the only person ever to check it out of the library, I can't wait to get home and read it.  I am stoked about this project.  I'm in a book group, and that's the only intentional and deliberate reading I've done.  Everything else has been haphazard.  This will be a big, big change.   

3) Year of the Definitive Cure.  I have ulcerative colitis, which is generally unsymptomatic and occasionally rises to the level of a mild nuisance.  Medicine generally keeps it in remission, but I have decided that's not enough, and I want a Definitive Cure.  Interestingly, I called today to make an appointment with my gastroenterologist.  I like him a lot, and was looking forward to telling him about the big plans I have for us.  I was told that he'd left the practice, with no plans to continue practicing medicine.  Hmmm.  So, I have no idea yet how the Year of the Definitive Cure is going to unfold.