Monday, January 02, 2012

Six Minutes To Midnight

Hello, 2012! Before I start biting large bloody chunks out of the New Year, let's nail the coffin lid down on the year just gone.

2010 was a tough year for me that culminated in a perfect storm of banal details (cumulative long-term sleep deprivation; an icy pavement; sub-zero temperatures and a quiet street) that collided to almost end me. I headed into 2011 recovering from my near-death experience feeling tired, gun-shy and burned out. So, for the first time, instead of beginning a year with plans and schemes and wishlists of life goals to be accomplished, I decided to try a different tack. I was trying to do too much. I needed to streamline and simplify my life. I needed a year to lie fallow, retrench and regroup. And that's how I began 2011 with a complete lack of ambition. That way, I thought, I'd have a smoother ride through the coming year.

Well, that didn't work. 2011 was just as tough. Maybe tougher. I may have wanted to take it easy, but the world had other plans.

What I did do in 2011 was sit through 290 movies. Some were great, more were bad, most were forgettable. The important part of that last sentence is "most were forgettable". I wasted time. I have absolutely no intention of sitting through anywhere near as many movies in the next twelve months. Time to stop being a passive consumer of largely disposable entertainment. Less observation, more participation. Turning the tap off on the input, flicking the dial to ramp up the output.

I'm going to be 40 this year. I've got things to do. Let's get on with it.

2 comments:

Whatley said...

How did you keep count?

AKA said...

I set up a tumblr blog and chucked the name of each film in there as I watched them, keeping count as they stacked up.