Resolutions for the restless
In 2024, the key to an unbeatable resolution is SURPRISE! Also - my East Asia camera roll, fave films and cool clips
I’ve told everyone in person that I can’t divulge my 2024 resolutions because they’re top secret (ie. because I’m saving them for this post). I am convinced that I’ve solved the problem of setting a resolution and then getting disillusioned, within six months, with the ultimate aim of the resolution. My new resolutions come with just the right mixture of rigidity and ‘growing space’, ie. eventual surprise. I am the director of the horror-thriller of my life and thus it is important to prioritise the unknown. (I’m already a bit angry at Co-Star because its astrological year forecast is way too specific).
They say ‘be rigid about your goals and flexible about your methods’. I am trying the exact opposite. I have only a slight idea of my goals. But my methods are unbreakable!
Spend four hours out of the house every day (including on weekends and when it’s cold)
I originally heard this as anti-aging advice (as a way to prevent a Lost Weekend-style… well… weekend), but I think it’s generally a great idea, and I’ve been experimenting with it a lot this year. It means you will always have stuff going on and have new experiences and feel like generally more of a person. When I can’t think of anything to do I go to the library and am pressured by my environment into doing uni work, which is a win. Sometimes I cheat by getting discount cinema tickets to very long films.
Ask three thousand questions
I’m really into asking questions because it’s a sign that I am an active participant in my own life, work, degree, human relations, etc. This resolution works on four levels:
You never know who/what the question will be concerning. The result is surprise!
You never know what will happen once you ask the question. The result is surprise!
People like you more when you’re curious
You’ll know more about others, and you can steal it all to put in a novel as long as you change everyone’s names afterwards
Get 100 rejections
This is a follow-up to the questions one. The trick here is that most places ghost almost everyone, so to get 100 written rejections you need to apply to way over 100 opportunities, and then it’s possible that some of them might actually be acceptances (this is how I got all of my magazine bylines, for those confused).
Again, by applying to things, you’re signalling that you are an active participant in your own life. It doesn’t matter which part of your life you’re participating in - it’s the audacity that counts. I plan to look for more bylines, other miscellaneous writing opportunities, and (AAAARGHHHH) my first full-time job. But perhaps halfway through the year I will decide to become a jockey and apply to steeplechases (?). The outcome is unknown to me. It’ll most likely be better than where I am now - this is the perk.
Also, isn’t it funny that there’s actually probably a smaller chance of being ghosted after pitching to a huge legacy publication than after applying for entry-level work?
Read some ambiguous amount in a foreign language
Long-time subs know that I measure the amount of Chinese I read by the # of unknown words that I encounter. I have just finished my last ever formal Chinese class at uni and am aiming for a few thousand more words this year on top of it, although the number of new words there are in any given book has (generally) gone down. At the moment I’m thinking I’ll do a proper study of Jung, but in Chinese. My goals could still change, and I’m expecting my dissertation/miscellaneous essay reading to eat up a few hundred words this year
Do four hours of ‘deep work’ every day
This is obviously the hardest one and sometimes untenable. I count deep work as stuff I couldn’t do while listening to a podcast. Drawing is out. Most of my obsessive little spreadsheet projects are out. Writing is in!
My favourite things in 2023, which has been the best year of my life so far
Getting my first articles published and finally telling people I am a writer instead of someone who is merely ‘trying to be a writer’
Copy-editing an excerpt from the diary of Joan Collins
Writing a screenplay with the greatest!!!
Wandering around Hualien, Kamakura, Hiroshima, and downtown Kyoto
Also skipping school to go to Hong Kong, inc. debating walking through a jungle alone after dark (didn’t, made concession to snakes) and then eventually taking a red double-decker bus alone on the massive highway. It’s not like a Wong Kar-wai film. It’s better!!
Meeting Madeline Smith of Vampire Lovers fame - she said Ingrid Pitt was a massive exhibitionist on set, and now I want to write the great Hammer backstage novel
Being in the first ever audience for Madonna’s Celebration Tour - also the first audience in 29 years to have heard Bedtime Story performed live. Really did feel like I was witness to a great historical event even though all my friends thought I was weird for buying tickets. Loved it so much I dipped into my student loan and went again almost immediately. Absolutely no regrets
My favourite films first watched in 2023
Jurassic Park (1993, dir. Steven Spielberg)
Jaws (1975, dir. Steven Spielberg)
Body Heat (1981, dir. Lawrence Kasdan)
Zabriskie Point (1969, dir. Michelangelo Antonioni)
Safe (1995, dir. Todd Haynes)
Gone to Earth (1950, dir. Powell and Pressburger)
My Beloved (1971, dir. Kong Lung)
The Swimmer (1968, dir. Frank Perry)
Some of my travel photos
Taipei riverside walk with my friend that involved crossing over to the highway (I think. I only took this because of the font. Isn’t the font amazing??)
My district of Taipei - someone’s farm and Taipei 101 in the background
One day it was so foggy that Taipei 101 disappeared
View from my balcony
In Hualien the light is very different
…told you so (taken from a hillside temple - the walk along that grassy bank during sunset was the most beautiful I can remember, but I also got bitten a lot)
The view from Yangmingshan, back in Taipei
Near my flat again - brutalism done right
My mad lone jaunt in Hong Kong
I would love to know what exactly it is that sets post-Meiji Japanese-Western architecture apart from indigenous Western architecture. A certain flourish of proportion? I think Japan does it better. It’s all very manufactured and affected but in a way that I don’t mind at all. I am a very low-maintenance traveller - I was so happy just walking around looking at every building in Kamakura. But next time I go to Japan I will hopefully have more of a budget and eat all the really good sushi.
Links to pass around (80s edition)
Aren’t these synths beautiful
I have been using a 12-minute extended instrumental of this to soundtrack my Christmas homework. Hollywood in Italo-vision