{"id":463,"date":"2011-01-17T08:41:03","date_gmt":"2011-01-17T12:41:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.summerofjim.com\/?p=463"},"modified":"2012-06-05T19:42:40","modified_gmt":"2012-06-05T23:42:40","slug":"resolutions-and-the-new-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/?p=463","title":{"rendered":"Resolutions, And The New Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

OK, OK…. look, I was meant to get this out before… like maybe between Christmas and New Years.\u00a0 Or at least, last week.\u00a0 But… you know, I’ve been very, very busy.\u00a0First, there was all that snow, and the drop in barometric pressure makes it difficult for me to focus on writing.\u00a0 Like my sinuses felt like they were\u00a0going to explode!\u00a0 And then I got influenza and got a real good look at how all those people died in 1918… and I’m not talking about in the trenches of northwest <\/em>France<\/em>… but in the living rooms of <\/em>Jersey City<\/em>!\u00a0 And then a particularly mean spirited\u00a0patron of Ash Creek made off with my early drafts.\u00a0 I think it was unintentional… but you never know.\u00a0 Do you know how hard it is to start from scratch knowing that some of my most brilliant material will be lost to the ages? How would Mozart feel? Now you have an idea how I feel… totally lost, cast adrift. And I promise, never… never ever\u00a0to be so careless. I’m starting this year right… I will not be careless and I intend to grow four inches taller!\u00a0Actually, there are no mean patrons at Ash Creek, at least around me… no, it was a dog.\u00a0 Yeah, it was my frolicking Bernese Mountain Dog, Claude who ate the drafts and that’s why I’m so late!\u00a0 Yeah, Claude the fuckin’ <\/em>Bernese<\/em> <\/em>Mountain<\/em> Dog….\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Once again we begin a New Year, and many of us enter into “personal contracts” to do this or that <\/em>in the New Year.<\/em>\u00a0 Typically these are goals pointed towards improvement… to lose weight, to obey the speed limit, to be more considerate of our co-workers, to never go into the express check-out lane with 12 items.\u00a0 You get the idea.<\/p>\n

There are parallels in Religious traditions as well.\u00a0 Both Yom Kippur and the Lenten period are times\u00a0when folks take an accounting of their lives and commit to self improvement.\u00a0 This is enhanced by a fast, or making a sacrifice of some type.\u00a0 As an example, for years I have eschewed consuming white zinfandel, both on Yom Kippur and<\/em> during Lent.<\/p>\n

It maybe a surprise to some that the tradition of making resolutions<\/em> is not “new” nor is it a creature of American invention.\u00a0 In 13th Century\u00a0the Abbey on the Firth of Forth\u00a0had a “Resolve Day” that was observed the day before the Summer Solstice.\u00a0 Yaroslav the Wise, Grand Prince of Novgorod established a Day of No Vodka in 1021 (he was succeeded by Bryachislav of Polotsk two days later after Yaroslav was assassinated).\u00a0 In 490 BC the City State of Athens created Run Naked Day (which no one observed except that dude who ran from Marathon to Athens and subsequently died from embarrassment… although Herotodus\u00a0wrote that\u00a0his death was due to exhaustion… Hah!<\/em>). Ramses II in 1274 BC after winning the Battle of Kadesh ordered a What Can I Do For My Pharaoh Day.<\/p>\n

So, you see that this resolution<\/em> and commitment to improve<\/em> thing\u00a0goes back pretty far in history.\u00a0 Here is a brief list of some famous personages and their recorded resolutions.<\/p>\n

Alan Ladd: “I will grow\u00a0four inches taller\u00a0this year.”<\/p>\n

Josef Stalin: “I will kill all\u00a0senior officers\u00a0Colonel grade and above\u00a0this year.\u00a0 And I will grow four inches taller.”<\/p>\n

Voltaire:\u00a0 “I will write to my Mother at least once a week.\u00a0 And I will grow four inches taller.”<\/p>\n

Stephen Douglas: “Ha-hoo! I will marry Mary Todd this year!\u00a0 And I will grow four inches taller.”<\/p>\n

Dudley Moore:\u00a0“I promise to always put down the toilet seat, and not because I’m asked to!\u00a0 And I will grow four inches taller.”<\/p>\n

Herman Goering: “I will use less rouge and only wear mascara when I go to the State Opera House. And I will lose four inches.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OK, OK…. look, I was meant to get this out before… like maybe between Christmas and New Years.\u00a0 Or at least, last week.\u00a0 But… you know, I’ve been very, very busy.\u00a0First, there was all that snow, and the drop in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ministry-of-jokes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=463"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":466,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463\/revisions\/466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}