betterment

I Need More Morals

November 7, 2005 by krisis

Sometimes i am completely capable of doing something right even when i am sure that i’m not.

Our wireless network was all sorta of wonky. Elise’s laptop was connecting with a wire, her desktop’s connection was dotty, and my computer suddently disconnected from the network every time i checked my imap email. Taken singly the problems might have seemed surmountable, but not all at once. Feeling utterly helpless, i disconnected the wireless modem last night and made no attempt to fix it.

Fast forward a little over 24 hours, and i have a hankering to check my email. I could just plug into the wired connection… if i wanted to be a fucking wuss. But, no. This is simple consumer technology. The only thing standing in my way are three separate operating systems. Everything else is a matter of logic. In some instances logic and instructions written primarily in German. So, mostly logic.

To make a long story short, an hour later here i am posting wirelessly once again. I could be doing the same thing from either of Elise’s computers if i felt like it. Was it simple? No. Did i break and mistakenly delete things along the way? Of course. But i figured out the problem my damn self.

Between this, riding my bike to work, crashing my bike and not dying, subsequently exchanging my bike with no argument, throwing a successful wine & cheese party (wait, i’ll get to that one), and not going to the ER despite being convinced i had broken my hand (although i most certainly hadn’t) i have had a very capable seven days.

Moral which i already knew: you can’t succeed at what you don’t try. Time to employ moral: Seven days down, lifetime to go.

Resolving

January 1, 2004 by krisis

I am at once against resolutions and constantly making them. One explains the other; i don’t believe that you can form a habit or make a decision solely because of a little bit of resolve, so i eschew typical New Years’ fare. On the flipside, you do need resolve to get something done, and it has to start somewhere.

I compromise — i resolve to do things in my head: drink less, do more, waste less, walk more. The interior list spirals into infinity, with each day bringing a new resolution whose name i dare not ever speak, less i infer that i might actually take action in its direction.

I don’t dispute that a new year offers a unique chance to put the right foot forward in terms of new habit; after all, one of the hardest parts of starting something new is starting. And, not coincidentally, i have stored up a few initiatives whose scope dwarfs my daily resolutions that have been waiting to get started. Of course, to resolve to do them would be redundant, as i already have done so on some level and have obviously failed. Still, i want to get these things done — they will make me a better person if i do them correctly. So, without further ado, here are some things which i am not resolving to do this year:

1. Know What I’m Spending – I am historically lackadaisical at best about tracking my monetary expenditures; i have a great idea of what i can and can’t afford, but if i had to cut out $50 a month of spending i would hardly know where to start. For years i’ve resolved to get such a project underway, but never bothered to form a habit that would last me more than a few days. This time i think i’ve done it right — little notecards in my wallet, and a meticulously synced up Quicken account. The method is there; all that remains to be seen is if i can remember to track everything.

2. Be Aware of What I Eat – Whether i choose to thinly disguise it or not at any given time, i have some very persistent weight and body image issues. Yes, i am one of those seemingly thin people who whines about “how fat i am,” and how i “just want to lose a few pounds.” I’ve tried to check this problem with exercise, but it’s a hard habit to form and one that easily indulges excessive and abusive behavior on my part. As such, my alternative is to understand what i eat — not just calories and carbohydrates, but serving sizes and recurrences. So far i’m having luck with Fit Day, which tracks a lot of detail without assuming any sort of diet or fitness craze. At worst i’m creating yet another echo of my life as so much electronic detritus, but at best i have the chance to learn how my twenty-something metabolism really works.

3. Use Time Smarter – I like to do a lot of things. I like to play guitar. I like to blog. I like to spend time with Elise. I like to do well in school. I like all of these things, but i don’t do any of them as well as i should because i am diluting them with each other. Tonight i spent three hours using the internet to catch up on current events when i really should have been doing any of the four previous things, but i hate to deprive myself of knowledge given the time to acquire it. The problem, really, is that i am too capricious with my time … i am most likely to do the thing i most recently resolved to do, even if i resolved to do something else all day. This is why i still don’t have a new album, why i don’t post every day, why i always have something to do when i’d rather be with Elise, and why i am always flirting with anything other than A’s. I need keep my overarching priorities in mind and not allow my current impulses to eclipse them.

In retrospect, these three resolutions seem like a quarter-life redux of childhood anal retentiveness, but in effect they’re my attempt to make a better use of my life. I’ve spent almost five years as a college student, to varying degrees of enjoyment and fulfillment, and the entire time i’ve envied people who enjoyed themselves more or fulfilled themselves better. This June i’ll become a real, honest-to-goodness adult, and i don’t want to go there not enjoying myself and feeling unfulfilled; i want to start on the right foot. And, to do that, i need to find out which proverbial foot that will be.

October 6, 2003 by krisis

I spent all day worried about the notes that i fucked up on Mother Mother. Peter, i kept thinking, how could you post a Trio with notes that fucked up?. Well, i knew how; “Mother Mother” had been holding me up for over a week, and finally this morning i just woke up, tuned my guitar, screamed intermittently for about three minutes, and then wiped my hands of the Trio just in time for my directing class.

I walked to said class while listening to, for the first time in many many years, Paula Abdul’s Forever Your Girl. This was an album that, in my pre-adolescent life, was probably second only to the LPs in my Madonna collection when it came to getting the most spins, though i would be hard pressed to explain that phenomenon to you after a day of suffering through the ten-track atrocity that Paula passed off as a debut album.

I refer to it as such not because it failed to be a coldly calculated synth-fueled pop smash (it was), but because even with the best computers the late eighties had to offer and a multi-cultural multi-gender team of anonymous back of singers, Paula can still barely hit a solid note. It’s actually quite pathetic. Verses that i remembered being supple and sweet were instead slurred and sloppy, and vocal crescendos on choruses were actually a tiny, squeaky Paula being carried by a crashing layered tide of herself and said crack team of backup singers.

I can appreciate that some people aren’t the most phenomenal singers, but all through my walk to and from class i found myself wondering couldn’t they have gotten a better performance out of her? Obviously the album was destined for success whether it featured assured singing or not, but why settle for not? Why not train more, or record more takes, or pick a pop-model who can actually sing to sell your songs rather than a former cheerleader destined to be remembered more for her scripted anti-Simon quips than her amazing vocal abilities?

I don’t know that i’ve figured out the answers, but tonight i found myself absent-mindedly listening to my first Trio ever, and i realized that i really didn’t hit very many of the notes. I was singing, and supporting a little, and i had pitch, but i was not singing with the tuneful confidence that invites harmony, a band, or a record deal. If had i turned in a similar performance earlier today it would have been promptly thrown into the recycle bin. And, yet, three years later i find myself kvetching about a “so” on “Not So Bad” whose O wasn’t round enough, how Paula Abdul’s singing is nothing but unimpressive and contrived without the wonderful world of Pro Tools to augment it’s many Britney quality failures, and how the vowel i sing in the word “mother” makes me sound like i’m trying to remember how to vomit.

In a moment of absolutely clarity, i realized that the only thing i know how to settle for is progress. None of these three complaints would have even occurred to me three years ago, two years ago i wouldn’t have known what to do about them, and a year ago i would have settled for a few mistakes and called it a day. Each step represented a previously unimaginable improvement from the last, but at each junction i was just as imperfect as Paula.

So, essentially, i cannot wait until season five starts. And that’s a long way from now…

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2003/10/106549333960331142/

September 8, 2003 by krisis

But, i think, if there were more hours in the day, then there would be no sense of urgency. As much as my ambitions outstrip my intent, and as much as i lament that i typically have too much energy to be contained within a simple 24-hour cycle, i know that if we just added two, or maybe four or five hours to the rotation then suddenly they’d each become that much more meaningless, like how i always make a trip to Borders on a day that i’ve earned overtime pay — not because i’m trying any less hard to save money than i was the day before, but because it’s harder to remember its value when it comes in a larger amount.

The 24 hours that we’ve got make me conscious of what i’m doing. Contemplating a re-read of all of this year’s lamentably edited Rolling Stone, i instead rerouted my attention to cracking open Atlas Shrugged for the first time; rather than sit down for a second daily helping of The Sims i tidied up my room and rehearsed for the impending fourth season of Trio. How else can i do all that i keep resolving to do, other than cutting out the things that i don’t?

I am convinced that those who claim “There just aren’t enough hours in the day” really need to be given a few less hours to work with for a week or two. After that they’d be fine.

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2003/09/106303981028794987/

August 27, 2003 by krisis

I don’t ever make resolutions for the new year, or, at least, not in the way other people do. It’s just too daunting to pick attainable, sustainable goals in the middle of paying off Christmas and going back to work, and implementing them with just one day of notice. It’s impractical. It’s ineffective.

The reason it’s ineffective, i think, is that there is no snooze button; if you decide to put off your diet for three days so that you can finish your holiday leftovers, suddenly your resolution has been shot to hell.

It’s much better to not just have a handful gargantuan tasks with a single effective date, but to have a laundry list of wishes and a whole season to accomplish them. My theory is that with a range of time and more reasonable goals to choose from, i’d stick to them a lot better. As such, with a scant 27 days left to the season, here is a belated lsit of my Summer Resolutions — of which i need to complete at least 75% by the beginning of Fall (at which point the remainder will roll over into my Fall resolutions).

Relearn and retain essentials of French language and grammar

Maintain a consistent weekly budget

~~Subscribe to intellectually stimulating magazines~~

Get abs

~~Visit Rabi~~

~~Walk New York~~

Study for the GREs

Make a fake book binder

Write new songs

~~Buy a computer~~

Record a new demo

Play the Tin Angel or The Point