From outside the box

I never understood why the new year starts right after the start of winter. I always thought that the first day of spring should be the first day of the new year. I think nature feels that way too. It just doesn't feel like the beginning of a new year when your greeted with frost covered windshields on cold January mornings or the Tulle Fog that can hang around for weeks.

I never was one for making new year pledges. Maybe that's because it just doesn't feel right to break up a perfectly unhealthy routine at the start of winter. If I'm going to quit sugar or exercise more, I'm not going to do it when nature is telling me to gain a few pounds for the cold season ahead. Besides, making new year pledges is too much like going to church on Sunday morning. Let me explain....I never liked the idea of picking out a certain time of the week or year to do something positive. To say we are only going to worship on Sunday or to make healthy changes for our lives only at the start of the new year is to insinuate that this is the only time of the year or week that we need to do these things, and that's just a cop out. I find that if you just stay away from church on Sundays as well as the other six days of the week, and never make any positive pledges anytime during the year, well, it's just easier to stay consistent.

But this year is different. This year I feel a renewed energy for life. Last night for instance, just before I went to bed, I was thinking about how great life is and how the room was spinning a lot. So I got up and puked. Things settled down a bit. So I'm sitting in my easy chair gazing out my window at the cold December sky and I'm thinking how great my life is and how little I need to be truly happy. Actually, I really don't have much. If you take away the big house, the pool, the car and truck, all the furniture, guitars, pianos, computers, flat screen TV's, loving dogs, wonderful family, good health, great business, above average income, piles of meaningless collectibles like Orient and Flume and Satava vases, and all the unnecessary fluff and junk that doesn't mean a thing, except when it's gone, I mean, you can take all that stuff away, and I really don't have that much left. But that's ok, because it is the simplicity and minimalistic nature of my life that grounds me in true happiness.

So like I said, this year is different. This year I am going to make a few pledges for the new year and I am going to declare them publicly so that everybody will know how committed I am to being a better person.
These are my pledges for 2008....

1. I pledge to be more tolerant of individuals who ascribe to a different political philosophy than myself. I will no longer see them as inferior, just wrong. I know what talk radio can do to a person and it's not really their fault.

2. I pledge to give more credence to theories like creationism and pay less attention to science. Just because science got it right on that "earth being round and not flat" thing, doesn't mean they can go and get all cocky about their scienceness, because it would be their luck that as soon as they do, somebody is gonna find a fossil of some blond headed boy riding on the back of a tyrannosaurus and it will be one big high five for the creationist's!

3. I pledge to quit siding with the global warming alarmist's. You know, maybe we make these things real by believing in them. What if everybody, just for 2008, said, "I'm not buying into your science, and your facts, and all this stupid true stuff." Maybe, just maybe....we could get everybody to just quit believing in it!

4. I pledge to be more tolerant of the war in Iraq and to have more of an open mind about it. Just because George Bush has been wrong about everything he could be wrong about is no reason to quit believing him now. Maybe the insurgency really is working. Maybe we will be out of there in 30 years instead of 50. Maybe the cost will not exceed 20 trillion. Maybe a few thousand more American lives is worth whatever it is we are trying to do over there. Maybe in 2008, I will come to understand what we are trying to do over there.

5. I pledge to quit bitching so much about "right wing spin". Things like truth and facts can be so boring not to mention misleading, especially if your trying to suppress the truth about something.

6. I pledge to quit trying to change the way religious people think. Sure, they might have God and truth on their side, but I've read almost all of Shirley McClain's books and I can tell you that God and truth are so over rated, it's not even funny! Still, I will continue to pretend to think they might be right. I like to be seen as being open minded.

7. I pledge to lighten up on the "new age hoo-hah". I know I can be a bit new agey, maybe because of the sign I was born under. I think it was a "stop sign". Anyway's, I have a new moon rising, along with some bread dough I think, in Sagittarius....I don't know, I'm a new age kind of guy, just pretend to go along with it.

8. Last but not least, I pledge to be more serious in my writing. My vain attempts at humor have always fallen a little flat, so beginning with this blog, I will take my writing responsibilities more serious. I believe it was Steve Martin who once said, "Comedy is serious stuff." Sad but true! So starting with this blog, I hereby vow to bring a new sense of dignity and purpose to my blogs in 2008.

I want to thank all of you who have read me in 07 and hope you will still be around in 08. I am grateful to all who have supported my ideas and ramblings as well as those who have taken issue with me and took the time to debate me or at least put in your 2 cents worth. Happy new year to all, Joe Shaw
P.S. Special new years kudos to Meagan, Janice, Celeste, Dane, Nick, Andy, and Jeff.