on a resolution
The Gregorian year has turned, from 2025 to 2026, and it’s the time of year when for better or worse, we make resolutions about the changes we plan, or hope, or will try to make in the new year. Though I’m not sure about the wisdom of the process of resolutions, I do nonetheless make them, and then track my progress until it becomes clear that progress will be slower than anticipated.
Some resolutions are difficult: I will change [pick a bad habit]. I’ve written before about procrastination, my old friend, and procrastination and I are still involved in a long conversation about its place in my life.
But there is one resolution I’ve made this year, that I will wake up every morning thinking, how will I keep this resolution alive today. I will pay more attention to the small and large details of the world around me.
It’s easy to get into the habit, a bad one, of not paying attention to these details. I take the same route from home to work, either via train or when I drive, and I devote some of my attention to the travel itself and some to podcasts, for instance.
I’m in the same physical office, on the same campus, where I’ve been for more years than I care to count, and it’s easy to just let the details wash over me without taking them on board.
So, let’s change this. On the walk this morning, both from home to the train and then from the train to the office, I paid attention to my footing; we’d had a bit of snow last night, and the footing was occasionally interesting. But I walked a bit slower than I usually do, and I noticed that at one point, someone had left a small teddy bear on a wall.
On the walk up the hill from the train station this evening, there was a bright point of light, possibly a star but more probably a planet, Venus maybe?, in the sky, and the sky was cloudless and beautiful shades of pale blues.
So the details of the world, when walking, when moving around campus, when at home. We’ll see how it goes.
multijimbo 