By WR Jones
I didn’t even make it to the new year to have a failed resolution. New Year’s eve at a relative’s home I resolved to stay awake to see the new year arrive. Didn’t make it past 10 PM – slept until 2 AM when wife woke me to drive home. She didn’t speak to me the whole way home. Seems when I nodded off my head dropped into the mashed potatoes. I’m considered an embarrassment.
These images show a progression in past resolution failures. The large 4′ x 5′ painting I resolved to compete something like 5 years ago. Sensing hopelessness on the larger paintings which require entirely too much persistent work, I switched to smaller sculpting projects. This piece is meant to be Mango herding sheep. Notice I have placed it up high out of the way. If I don’t look up I won’t be reminded of the 75% remaining work to completion. You know, I’m surprised I can even spell that word “completion”. It’s like a foreign language. The guitar? I was going to play that back around 1972 as I recall.
To mitigate my extremely high resolution failure rate my 2016 resolutions are
1. Exercise less
2. Eat more
3. In particular, eat more chocolate
4. Also in particular, eat more Cherry Garcia ice cream
5. Do even less around the house. This is only theoretically possible. Have to call in some experts to see if it is possible to do less than zilch.
6. Do absolutely NO yard work. This is not only possible but probable.
This is going to be my first ever successful resolution year. GO 2016 !!!
On Painting 
Cherries Garcia is my favorite flavor of all time. I think I will take some cues from your resolutions, since you are older and have a lot more experience with failure than I do. You are good mentor. Thank you!
Becca – can’t tell you how rewarding it is to know you are helping a youngster make her way through this world.
To start your new year off I will give you the core foundation of my inclination to do less. Suppose you had PhDs from Harvard, MIT, and Cal Tech; you could speak 12 languages fluently; you received the Nobel prize in chemistry, and peace; authored 15 best sellers to go along with your 12 platinum albums featuring your voice and violin. What happens next? You die having worked your ass off. Ok, you say, but I will be remembered forever. Nope, you maybe in history books for a 1000 years or so, but what about 100,000 years from now; think you will be remembered then? For a dead person 100,000 years is a blink of an eye. By a million years or 10 blinks of an eye there will be no record of your existence at all.
This is the argument I put forth nightly seeking to get out of doing the dishes. While it is a sound philosophical argument, practically speaking it sucks. I know this by my dishpan hands.
Happy New Year, Bill…. I always love your realistic view of the world!!
Happy New Year Marian – Keep painting. It is one of those occupations that stops dead in its tracks any criticism we might be working on something useful like a plow or Ebola vaccine.