May you not fail to accomplish your obligatory vapid pledge of self-improvement over the following 365 days

I failed.

As to my previously stated objectives for the past year, I accomplished not a one to my satisfaction. This is the first time since I started this blog that I have been unable to look back on my previous year's resolutions with a degree of pride. Some of the blame goes to chronic pain and depression, but the lion's share must rest with my own lack of motivation and discipline. I state this not as some sort of self-flagellation, but as a simple fact. I need to improve my performance if I am to remain worthy of my own self-esteem. To that end, I am tightening up my declaration of intentions this year to reflect increased discipline and realism. One consistent problem with my resolutions has been their vagueness, and the loosely worded 'x number out of' a series of commitments, which gave me too much latitude to ignore easily achievable objectives with the excuse of chasing the hazier and less realistic options. Thus, I am committing myself, in the eyes of myself (the only god I desire to please), to carry out all of the following concrete and achievable goals over the next year:

• Exercise for 20 minutes each and every day.
• Study the Finnish language with my wife for an hour every week.
• Continue to improve my knowledge and skill in food-gardening and produce a significantly expanded yield.
• Create writing intended for publication each and every day.

To expand on the last point: by 'intended for publication' I do not necessarily mean for paid publication, though I hope to maintain some degree of income generation from all of it, but rather that it will all be intended to be seen by the reading public, either in this blog or in a further venue. One of my greatest regrets in the past years is the extent to which I have allowed my blogging to lapse, particularly given the fascinating and in many ways heartening recent developments - the Arab Spring, Occupy Globally, and the increasing feeling that revolution is in the air - as well as less optimistic tides too numerous to list. Therefore, I am further committing to a renewed focus on blogging and to a minimum of twice-weekly blog posts to be submitted by 6 AM CST on Mondays and Thursdays. I'm going to be re-orienting my work away from the kind of current-events commentary that makes up the bulk of the blog so far and focus on more substantial posts on topics such as egoist/Satanic moral ideals, feminist and gender politics, alternative economics, permaculture/greenpunk lifestyles, transhumanist and mutualist political theory which I think have been some of my better pieces here. I'm going to be permanently ending the 'Signals of Impending Doom' series; anyone who can't see the signals for themself is blind, and I'm more interested right now in explicating how individuals and political progressive movements generally can maximize our opportunities in whatever form of collapse does happen to wash over us in the coming decades.

My thinking on these topics has matured considerably since I started this blog as a wild-eyed, somewhat panicked response to the alarming trends that I had failed to see developing around me during my youth. I've been thinking that the title and format of this blog are inappropriate for the range and scope of topics I've taken on and may be migrating to new platform, so stay tuned.

In encouraging news, this year has been a landmark for me in terms of achieving my lifelong dream of becoming a professional science fiction author. I published my first story for pay; I gave my first public reading, of said story; and I'm developing some good connections in the local writing scene and have several complete and pretty decent pieces floating around in search of publishers, with a good half-dozen more in varying stages of completion. (Yes, yes, I know; I could just post them on my blog. Call it a holdover of capitalist thinking, but I can't see calling myself a 'professional author' until I'm at least getting professional rates for my best work.) My wife and I are looking at practicable financial independence at some point in the next several months, and our 'five-year plan' finally looks to be back on track after a considerable hiatus. In any case, I wish anyone still following this rag good luck in the next planetary orbital period, and may all your actions be for your own greater good.