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Authors: Ben K. <benk@tilde.team>
Date: 2020-12-27
Now that 2021 is right around the corner, I am feeling some kind of psychological pressure to make plans for the new year. Since 2020 was so fucked up, it seems to have inspired me to think bigger than I had done in previous years.
In the past my goals have usually been focused around language-learning. In 2019 I resolved to study Irish, but I abandoned it only a few months into the year. Later in the year I messed around with other stuff, chiefly Chinese if memory serves correct. For 2020 I decided to stick with German, and I have managed to do that all year, though my German studying slowed to a crawl late in the year. However, I found that fruitful and rewarding.
Language-wise I should probably continue on with German until I reach a level of proficiency that I'm satisfied with. There's also the temptation to change it up and return to some of my old loves like Norwegian or maybe even Irish again. Anyway, that's a slippery slope that ends with me giving up after tossing aroudn such ideas as Greek and Hebrew, or improving my Arabic and Polish.
This year there are a few things that I *need* to do, like renew my commitments to my main activities: the study of Persian, literature, and contributing to the Esperanto community. At this point in my personal development, I'm well-positioned and qualified to undertake major projects in these fields, but I often find myself lacking in motivation. Life just gets you down.
The thing that I was thinking about mainly today is ratcheting up the Internet activism, specifically boycotting Facebook and Google. I already mostly made the transition away from their products and services, but I feel there's an opportunity for the new year to get a little more "religious" about it and rather than using them minimally, try to stop usin them altogether except when reasonably necessary.
Part of this is paying mind to my productivity, since while I'm no longer dependent on these services, that doesn't mean I should wast my free time idly using them either. I tell myself I don't need Facebook, but I still check it when I'm bored. The same goes for popular products I have come to dislike such as Reddit and Discord. I already prefer freer alternatives to these but have yet to cut the cord.
The trick I think is going involve some level of commitement like uninstalling software, disabling accounts, and letting go of online "friends" that I never interact with on a human level but rather are just virtual items whose purpose is only to fill up my social feeds and tempt me check sites only to see what they are up to. (And why should I care?) I need to divert all that time and energy into reading books, at the very least. Heck, even playing games would probably be a better use of the time at this point.
In fact, I should probably find ways to spend more time offline and away from the Internet. I don't need to stop using it altogether, but I don't see what the problem would be if I turned it off for a day or tried to come up with a time schedule.
I'd also like to get back into programming once and for all, but as usual I don't have a language that I want to fully commit to. Not that it matters so much what language you use, but I would still need to have one as a home base, as it were, and for me that has long been C++, but should it be? Maybe Rust? Also I still can't explain what keeps drawing me to Haskell, but I can't seem to give up on that. Perhaps I'll focus on that, though I've long meant to give Ocaml an earnest chance.
Anyhow, better to start with the negation. I can figure out what languages to learn, books to read, and things to do *after* I unplug Facebook and spend some more time offline. Also, that doesn't mean I won't do social, but rather get rid of certain things and let other things take their place. Hopefully free and open source things, but perhaps some commercial things that aren't too evil. (Maybe this is taboo, but I actually made an account on MeWe at the suggestion of a friend of mine and find it quite tolerable.)
So there you have it; I'm going to have to mull it over for a few days in order to convert this idea into a concrete plan of action. I would like to be ready on January 1st to throw down the gauntlet, but we shall see.