Resolve

Everyone wants to be or do something, right? I do too... but just not right now.

Happy 2025! Now sit with me for a moment. Put away that list of forms you want to morph into, the achievements you want to surpass for the sake of validation, and the endless slew of tasks. Join me in my resolution to rest. To minimize the material intake, and instead soak in the power and beauty of the gentleness around, the gentleness we create ourselves. Let it last even just a minute longer than it takes you to read this, and read your world in the silence.

I don't know about you, but I think that resolutions started the moment that consciousness did. From the moment I could form a thought, that thought was a question of what the next achievement or task would be. Ingrained in me so thoroughly that I didn't know that growth could come just from resting. Basking. Absorbing.

When my consciousness started to form into something tangible, something moldable, I was told that I would make something of myself. That I should make something of myself. That my small efforts would turn into large rewards in one smooth stream of continuity. Well, I guess no on ever said that explicitly, but it was implied when I was told I should get good grades, apply to colleges, and attend said colleges and get the "college experience" before the "real world" cuts down my creativity and freedom in one fell swoop. That I should go for that internship I didn't much like for the sake of a coveted post-grad job immediately upon my cap's tassel turn. So much laid upon the threads of a tassel. So no, it wasn't stated in crude, ominous terms, as I would find them to be, but it was slowly ingrained until I thought the idea was mine. When I pick up that thought, shine a spot on it, rotate it on a pedestal, I realize how far it is from my truth. The truth is, I want to be nothing. At least for now.

I mean "nothing" in the most fulfilled sense of the word. In the most "something" sense of it. In the sense of sitting on a bridge in the middle of the day, staring at the unmoving mountains until I can hear the shouts of those who scale them. Until my own shouts resound back to them. Ruminating until I figure out the meanings of phrases, life, gestures, nature. Picking up a blade of grass and imagining each atom of each element of each cell inside, trying to comprehend everything that went into its formation. I want to lay beside my cat in the sun puddle cast onto our bed, watching her fine runaway hairs float through the rays. I want to nestle into my comfortable brewery job and chat with each regular without the thought of being more, doing more. I am more already, but I want to be able to recognize that before pursuing something that tells me my desires need to go beyond myself.

I want to exist in this little cranny of the mountains and simply enjoy it, look around, breathe in and out off of the timer.

I resolve to take my name out of the rat race, and walk calmly away from the bustling herds of those who have run past the idea of peace. I resolve to watch clouds swirl across the skies and past my lips and sink into the folds of time and space while Hippie Sabotage drones on in the background. I resolve to be nothing in the sense of being everything, because just by existing am I a part of something bigger. A part of everything. The cells in my body are comprised of that which makes the sun burn bright and that is enough for me. I don't desire to burn as my own bright star just yet, but rather feel connection with everything that is and has been.

All this to say: I resolve to just be. To minimize my consumption of products and the media promoting them. We (or should I say I) spend so much time living in moments that aren't ours, wishing ourselves into new forms and levels and achievements. Even while we imagine that we are resting, if our phones are present and unlocked we are consuming more and more media, each post worming its way into our heads under the guise of inspiration. Why pause the movie that is our life to watch the TV show that is glimpses of other peoples' lives? I don't need to consume a post or podcast or video telling me how to minimize distractions in my life, but merely relinquish the distracting media itself.

I resolve to take my life back, and stop living in the jealousy of wanting the lives of others. I resolve to appreciate I'm alive and am existing in the world. I have hands to type out my cavernous thoughts into this little computer, and thoughts that may not be originally mine, but they're being thought up in a sequence that is originally mine. I am the earth and the sun and the galaxies in the night sky, and I resolve to surrender to that. I resolve to be nothing, until I am called to act upon the wholeness it has earned me.