Captain's Log

I find it fitting that my first ever blog should be on the first day of a new year. There is something very refreshing about it. Almost as if it represents a "fresh start", something that most people seem to need these days. Not that by any means was I disappointed with the paths that I was on yesterday, because that isn't at all the case. I was very content. However, today has arrived, and with an unfaltering urge to grow forward, I find myself here, writing to no one, with the hopes that this new social endeavor will continue to be just that. New. Something that can always be the inspiration for conversation.

With that in mind, there is something that I had on my mind. Something that today is most widely known for (besides hangovers) and that is the idea of "fresh starts". Everyone enters a new year with high hopes; Aspirations for better year than the one before. As I mentioned, I was never in discontent with 2010. In fact, by all respects, It was probably one of the best years I have experienced thus far. So why has this "fresh start" been on my mind. Well, like everyone else, upon the beginning of a new year, I have set myself some resolutions. Ones that I think, this year, I will finally be able to accomplish (and no, it isn't the usual "lose a bunch of weight and eat healthier" that most people would expect. I have no delusions of building a six-pack or looking like the next Mr. Universe). They are simply three goals measured not by accomplishment, but by personal satisfaction.

1) Inside Voice:

As anyone who knows me well enough can tell you, I am loud. Sometimes unbearably loud. I am convinced that I was born without the ability to control, or perceive, the volume of my voice. Since I had become speech savvy as a boy, I felt the need to shout my opinions to anyone within earshot (even if that earshot was just across the dinner table). Naturally projecting my words from the diaphragm, I quickly developed reputation as the loud, obnoxious kid on Stanlow Crescent (and this reputation still precedes me in my social circles).

Inside Voice is my first resolution of 2011. I hereby entrench myself in the struggle to cage my booming voice. So I may, for the first time ever, find myself in quiet conversation.

2) Sans Sailor Mouth:

Again, if you spend time around me with any consistency, you know how crude and vulgar my talks can become. F this and all that SH. It's a habit that I have developed in my upbringing (that's right, I'm blaming my parents). As a child of a Scot and a Brit, our house was never short of F-bombs and the occasional derogatory slur. Even at times when these kinds of diction unnecessary, even inappropriate, I find I always fall back into the same verbal routine.

Sans Sailor Mouth is resolution number two of 2011. I will commit myself to finding suitable replacements for fuck, shit, dick, and yes, even cunt. They are unattractive and I have no need for them.

3) Be Opinionated:

This may seem a strange new years resolution. To commit myself to be MORE opinionated rather than less. However, this may make more sense after this confession. I have a struggling difficulty to form opinions that are solely my own. Most of the opinions I have now are simply recycled from those I respect, admire, or even in some cases terribly dislike. I find myself repeating and reusing thoughts from others, presenting them as the workings of my mind, and sometimes with little understanding of their true context or meaning.

Be Opinionated is my third and final 2011 resolution. I will gather information and ponder my own opinions in the place of the recycled, reused, and repeated thoughts of others.

So there it is, my 2011 resolutions. To be judged not by accomplishment, but self satisfaction. Perhaps I will blog my progress. But for now, I leave with a quote from my favorite web-comic writter, Ryan Sohmer.

Because I can.

~Adrian