sirshannon
New Year’s Resolution MMXVI
Last year, my NYR was this: 
For the most part, I was successful. I recently gave up on always adding a comment to links I posted or posts I reshared on Facebook but I either completely avoided faving any posts on social media or I was damn close to 0 faves. The surprising thing to me was that it made me feel like an asshole. There were many times when I saw something that I liked felt like I should click the button or the store or whatever, but I could not because of my resolution. I seriously doubt that the person who posted the content would notice that I didn’t fave it but I knew. And I felt bad because of it. That was strange and unexpected.
For 2016, my New Year’s resolution is to create more content for myself and less content for third parties who will make money off of my free content creation. Step one of this: I deleted my Facebook account today. I guess my Instagram account is also deleted because without a Facebook account I cannot log into my Instagram account. Two birds one stone. I assume I will continue my own again off again Twitter (@sirsha) usage. I will also continue posting mostly other people’s original work to my tumbler page.
I hope to start blogging again a little more regularly than I have in the last decade or more. This site has been around in some form or another since around 2001, and I hope it continues another 15 years. Things like Facebook just tend to want to suck all content into themselves. Until they become better citizens of the Internet and their ecosystems, I feel like they do more harm than good for a lot of people. This may not be true for you it may not be true for most people but I do believe it is true for me.
Without a Facebook page to post the link on directing people to this blog, I wonder if it will be just another leaf gently falling from another silent tree in the vast empty forest of the Internet. For many (most?) people, Facebook is the doorway to the Internet. Forests don’t have doors. Personal sites are found by those who wander or those with maps. I’m pretty sure my blog traffic peaked around version 3 of this site, in 2004, so I’m okay with tossing leaves into the Empty. Better to float than to be stepped on by the crowd.
So what, specifically, do I want to accomplish this year?
- Post more to my own site(s).
- Write more “offline”
- Write at least 2 8-page comic scripts
- Make some damn music
- Edit some video
- Learn to draw a little
- Learn to fly my cheap little quadcopter well enough to feel comfortable buying an expensive video drone for myself next Xmas
- Have 5 video shots in mind that will work as my excuse for buying a drone (This was my wife’s brilliant suggestion.)
This list seems reasonable enough. I’ll check back in 366 days and we’ll see.
Happy New Year.
art facebook internet new years resolution nyr personal writing