New Year’s resolutions

It’s that time of year again.  People are awash in the usual new year articles and discussions. A new year is about hope and new beginnings.

Coming from well-needed vacations, many are also coming from conversations with the self. Ensconced in families and catching up on old and new ties (so valuable in a country that has had decades of diaspora),  many are able to revalue what is important.

Then there is the relieving and sometimes successful undertaking of organizing desks and cleaning out cabinets and shelves.

And so, as part of this impetus for renewal, many make new year’s resolutions. 

Cynicism

However, for those who enjoy looking at life from behind shattered and multi-colored glasses (me! me!) there is also the flip side. It is a time also to take into our hearts those who are having a tough time this season: the depressed, the lonely, the grieving, the hungry, the poor, the oppressed. I especially sympathize with the families of more than 6,000 and more Filipinos who were killed in the ongoing drug war and who were spending their first Christmas and New Year without a father or a mother or a sibling or a child.

There is also the cynicism that comes from knowing that many of us were at the exact place of hopefulness at the start of 2016. I do not know about you, but 2016 was a very bad year for me. As far as I am concerned 2016 was annus horribilis for the Philippines and the world.

As for New Year’s resolutions, we all know that many do not succeed. As for new learnings, sometimes we grow wiser because of just making it through life. It is also in taking on the quotidian that we become wiser. This imperceptible and long process isn’t really marked by the start of one year and its end 365 days later.

Still, the cup is never truly empty. And there is virtue to having a season when we are encouraged to see it as at least on its way to being half full.

After all, some New Year’s resolutions do get fulfilled. And some take us all the way to the next week.

Resolutions

And so, without further ado, here are some of my resolutions that I believe are worthy of sharing with others.

1. Work only eight hours a day and do not work on weekends. For me this includes health behaviors like exercise and meditation. I usually enjoy exercise and mediation after a lot of self-encouragement and discipline. One gets into a rhythm. But my favorite pastime, what would really be leisure, is lying in bed and gathering wool. So I am classifying self-improvement as work. Call me self-indulgent, and I will call you a capitalist overlord.
2. Reduce social media exposure to 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the evening. I have noticed that social media is full of hateful and stupid people who don’t go to pro-Marcos rallies despite their avowed love for that family.  Also I like interacting with real people, not fake accounts and bots. I could write a whole different article on that cesspool called social media. But I will just add that I am in danger of losing the ability of formulating a simple grammatical statement because of too much exposure.
3. Refuse to say,  “I told you so.” On election day last year, I wrote an article about the incoming Duterte administration. I predicted 9 outcomes, 6 of which have come to pass. The other 3 may still happen. I got trolled for making those predictions. “Give him a chance.” “He has just started.” “We need unity.” “Yellow tard.” Yadda, yadda, yadda. Six out of 9, baby! I told you… oops!
4. Do my bit to expose fake news articles and sites. This is what I will prioritize in my limited social media time. Ensure that those fake statements from dubious sources, like the Department of Justice or the President’s spokesperson, will be shown up for the lying idiocy that is contained there. Repost real news instead.
5. Never take the President’s pronouncements seriously unless he is threatening to kill addicts. (And maybe a little bit about liking China and Russia.) No, truly. They almost always spin it or take it back. And it is not good for one’s mental health to allow oneself to be gaslighted.
6. Refuse to close my eyes to the ongoing extrajudicial killings. Denounce it at every turn. Refuse to justify it. Call out those who are peddling the lie that this is somehow a form of justice and human rights protection for the victims of drug crimes. Refuse to accept that progress, any progress, is worth this price.
7. Help to stop the polarization in the country by engaging and encouraging in respectful and sincere exchanges of opinion. Stomp on any trolls that say I should engage them as a form of being respectful. It should be self-evident that cursing, personal attacks and repeating the same tired argument over and over isn’t respectful. It should be self-evident that engaging so you can get paid for every comment isn’t respectful. It should be self-evident that muddying the waters of that crucial tool for democracy and progress, the free exchange of ideas, makes trolls scum. If I close my mind and heart to those who sincerely disagree with me, however, it is a step toward the hard-heartedness that can minimize and rationalize and trade-off on extrajudicial killings. If I allow the trolls to polarize it falls with the agenda of those who are moving toward authoritarianism and fascism by riling up people’s prejudices and hatreds.
8. Believe that this madness will come to an end. That the killings will eventually stop. That the rule of law will return. And that all those who have despoiled themselves by participating in the lies and the murders will be called to account.

Happy New Year, y’all. – Rappler.com