#Entry 1

note: i originally wrote this post (and the next one) in markdown. i won't be reformatting. 

also, i wrote this post before i really started constrained creativity in its current form. therefore, these posts don’t really follow the conventions or voice of the rest of the posts. sorry not sorry.

#Entry 1

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i hate to say i’m searching for a theme for this year, but i guess i am.

it’s the beginning of my first calendar year without any school ahead of me and i want to start off in the right direction (whatever that means). just to say it again: this is the first year of my entire life in which i haven’t either been IN school or had more schooling to look forward to at some point in the future.

and so i’m taking the time today to do three things:

1. review 2014 in depth

2. think about my priorities in life

3. creating a plan for 2015 based on 1. and 2.

one thing that’s on my brain right now as far as a theme goes is based on a song my roommate, ben golder, reminded me just a few days ago. it’s the song ‘do you realize?’ by the flaming lips (truth be told, i’m listening to it right now). the line that’s really resonating with me and making me feel like it could be the theme for this year is

> “do you realize that everyone you know someday will die?”

i’ve been thinking a lot about how the american desire to not deal with death affects our lives and my conclusion so far is that it makes us do lots of really stupid things. and so i want to focus this year on framing my life by that reality: everyone i know right now and everyone i will ever meet (including myself) will die someday. the reality of that could be terrifying and crippling, but it could also be freeing and joyful. i’m choosing to live like it’s the latter. so maybe the theme for this year is 'do you realize…?’

the other thing i’ve been thinking about lately is the intersection (or conflict or disconnect or something…) between technologies and things that matter.

i think humans have an innate desire to create and we often try to create things that will make life 'easier’ for us. and some of the promise of new technologies (and it has almost always been this way) is that by reducing the amount of time we need to spend doing things we don’t like, we would have more time to spend doing the things we really care about. but along the way (and this, too, has almost always been true), the technologies have captured our attention more than the things they were supposed to free us up to do [(see juliet schor’s work on the overworked american and overspent)](http://www.julietschor.org/academics/juliets-books/).

for me, the things that matter have always been the same and may also have been the same for almost all of time:

1. relationships

2. being well (physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, all of the things)

3. love and loving (which, for me, looks like doing things to make life better)

and so i want to be very clear in my decision-making this year: technology exists to give me more time and a better ability to focus on the things that matter. if a technology (and i mean technology in the most open sense) isn’t serving that purpose, it’s out. i hope this will have the affect of removing things from my life that appear to have that affect, but really don’t.

for example, i think facebook no longer helps people be social in the way that it used to. facebook doesn’t help me actually connect with people. and so despite its framing as 'the social network,’ i want to be intentional about developing my social network outside of it.

so those are the two things i’m taking into 2015: 'do you realize?’ and attention to the distinction between technologies and things that matter. i don’t know how this is going to work out, but i’m excited.

here we go.