And so the chorus of resolution rises to the very spires of our collective conscience. Who among us dares not absolve some perceived sin or excess with a fresh pledge?
Well, hey, I've surfeited of much in 2010, including the most noble and the most base of human indulgences, that which bends and pins the ends of both to mark the center of all. Do I really have to name my topic? The universal lyric from punk to Puccini -- it inspires and conspires. It hurts. It heals, they say.
They say it makes the world go 'round. If so, we must send it 'round with vigor. What better promise to make and keep?
It is the resolution without resolution. Less an intention or determination, and more the meaning of the word "resolution," which connotes a progression of harmony from dissonance to consonance. A making of sense from nonsense.
We call it Love, but it means so many different things to every one of us. It is the family we have and the one we make. It's the driver of action and the finger in the dam. It's the careless rapture and the most measured of risks. It makes us singular and defines our humanity. It is sublimely selfish and simply selfless. It makes sinners of saints and saints of sinners. And the world goes 'round.
Love: Ouch. Ah. Amen.
Make it for real. I'm ready. I can take it. So can you. Don't be a ghost.
"The Saying"
In an old bookI stumbled across a saying.It was like a strangerpunching me in the face,
it won't stopgnawing at me.When I walk around at night,looking for a beautiful girl,
when a lie or a descriptionof life or somebody's fakeway of being with peopleoccurs instead of reality,
when I betray myself withan easy explanationas if what's dark is clear,as if life doesn't have thousands
of locked, burning gates,when I use words without reallyhaving known their strict opennessand put my hands around things
that don't excite me,when a dream hides my face with soft handsand the day avoids me,cut off from the world,
cut off from who I am deeply,I freeze where I amand see hanging in the air in front of meSTOP BEING A GHOST!
- Ernst Stadler (rendered by Stephen Berg)