New Year, New Blog

It's rather strange and remarkable, when one tries to think about it objectively, that the dawn of a New Year has such a capacity to inspire people. I'm far from immune to this phenomenon (indeed, I relish the hope and excitement that I feel each start of the new year), but recent discussions that I've observed among my friends have given me cause to ponder the peculiarity of January 1's inspirational potency. Over the span of the last few days on my Facebook feed (being the 21st Century creature that I am, Facebook is probably my primary means of knowing what's got the world abuzz), mixed in with posts about New Years Eve celebrations and lamentations about the Dallas Cowboys' fatally abysmal performance against the New York Giants last night (many of them my own), was an interesting dichotomy as to New Years' significance between my more cynical friends on the one hand, and those on the other who might be described as either upbeat and optimistic, or naïve and full of shit, depending on whether or not you belong to the first group (personally, I've always prided myself on membership in the "naïve and full of shit" group). Over the past few days, we in the latter group have been looking forward excitedly to a 2012 full of new opportunities and have been reflecting on all of the novel, perhaps unlikely, things we wish to accomplish before that last numeral on the calendar changes again this time next year, while those in the former group sit astounded that we in the latter feel that anything has changed due to the mere completion of one revolution on the Earth's part around the sun. Like I said, when one thinks about it from a strictly scientific and objective perspective, they seem to be right- but self-improvement and pursuit of the good life is an art, not a science, my friends. That statement might seem odd coming from a History and Government major (specialty in political theory) whose favorite period is the Enlightenment- that period of greatest triumph for science and reason over emotions and idealism- but it's something that has made itself as abundantly clear as anything to me in the short 20 revolutions around the sun that the Earth has completed since I was born. That feeling that the dawn of a new year offers hope for redemption and self-improvement may not be rational or quantitative, but the real-world accomplishments that it can bring about are.

One such accomplishment that I have committed myself to achieving in this new year is to blog more often. I am a writer: it is what I love to do, and, according to many of the teachers and friends I've encountered over the years, it is one of the things which I am best at. I also pride myself on being somewhat in touch with the zeitgeist of the times in which I live, and current on what is hot and new in the world. As such, a marriage between my love of writing and my love of new media in the form of blogging seems only logical. I've tried my hand at blogging before (my old blog can be found at http://teen-age-wasteland.blogspot.com/), but, though I'm proud of the posts that I put up on that blog, in hindsight I see that I put far too many and too rigorous regulations on myself in posting on that blog, which resulted in my failure to post more than just one or two entries every several months. Politics being my first and greatest passion, I stipulated to myself that it was all that I would write about on my blog. As I aspired to be a columnist someday, I likewise mandated that my entries on the blog be formal, at least 500 words, and read like something one might find in The New York Times or Time Magazine. I have placed no such demands on myself in what I am going to post on this blog. This being the blank slate on which I can write anything at all that I would like the world to read, I intend on writing about any and all of my interests- which will of course include politics, but also movies, music, my favorite TV shows, religion, sports, philosophy, and even the art of writing itself. More innocent readers should be warned that I'm not going to hesitate to throw in a "fuck" or a "shit" when deemed appropriate or necessary, either. The only rule that I will be imposing on myself in the authorship of this blog, is that I will post multiple times every day (excepting special circumstances such as vacation or a prolonged separation from my beloved MacBook Air). Sometimes the posts will be long and sometimes they will be short, sometimes they might be about the differences between the Hobbesian, Lockean, and Rousseauian Social Contract theories, while sometimes they might be about the delicious teenage drama that unfolded on "Glee" the night before. Always, I hope, they will be entertaining. With that, Happy 2012 everyone, and keep dreaming! Life's too short not to be "naïve and full of shit." ;-)