I have almost never made a new year’s resolution, but online events of the past month (I think we all know what I’m referring to) have prompted me, belatedly, to make some for this year, plus a couple more just for good measure. Instead of nine muses, I have nine resolutions. This post is partly humorous, but fundamentally, I’m quite serious.
1) I will not participate in arguments or discussions that confuse and conflate poetry and politics. (This will be a tough one to stick to, especially since it covers much of the ground of several other resolutions.)
2) I will not argue with several specific persons with whom I have publicly argued in the past. There is simply no point in expending the time and energy. As a starting point, I will not mention their names here.
3) I will not respond to attacks on my person or my character. (Another one that will be hard to stick to.)
4) I will not read comments after ten PM. It interferes with my already fitful sleep.
5) I will remember that when people talk trash to or about me online, they are responding to a mental effigy that has nothing whatsoever to do with me or what I have actually written. (The evidence for this is overwhelming.)
6) I will remember that I was never one of the cool kids, that I never liked the cool kids, and that I shouldn’t ever try to be one of the cool kids.
7) I will not stoop, not even to conquer. (Another toughie, but I will try my best.) 
I will always put my new and overpriced glasses in the same place when I take them off, so I won’t ever again have to spend half a day looking for them.
9) I will again take off the fifteen pounds I lost while in the hospital last year (where I was able to eat nothing for a week) and during the period in which I had short gut syndrome following the removal of my tumor and a portion of my colon. The cancer diet needs to be good for something, after all.
A wise list, Reginald! Number 5 in particular. (I love the “mental effigy” concept.) Like movie actors with whom people fall in love or in hate, writers—especially in their online incarnations (incybernations?)—are at the mercy of the frustrated, the angry, the small-minded, and the frankly insane.
Posted By: Joseph Hutchison on February 17, 2008 at 1:48 pmDid you see Bill Moyers’ Journal Friday night? He interviewed Susan Jacoby regarding her new book, The Age of American Unreason, and during the conversation she mentioned a 2006 National Geographic poll of 18- to 24-year-olds which found that only 23 percent of those with some college could locate Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel on a map. Not a blank map, mind you, but a map with the names of the countries shown! In other words, these beneficiaries of our educational system couldn’t identify the Middle East—otherwise, they would have discovered all four countries there.
My point is this: When respondents to your posts flaunt their ignorance, remember that they are members of that benighted 23 percent—and therefore their opinions are utterly irrelevant.
Keep up the good work!
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The hardest one of these might be number 6: it is SO hard to remember that one did not even ever really WANT to be one of the cool kids! Because, after all, they were supposed to be cool, and everyone wants to be cool, right?
Posted By: Andrew Shields on February 17, 2008 at 3:35 pmReport this comment