in search of lost time
I wish I could say I've spent the last few days getting in quality time with family sans devices à la Mei's, especially since my aunt is here, but alas—that hasn't been the case. I have been taking some time away from writing, but spent most of that time away sucked into my iPad, rather than on more productive pursuits like reading or reflecting. I want to blame part of it on my aunt, who is perpetually on her phone, even though I know that's not a very good excuse. All the screens do make me wonder: is it rude for me to distract myself digitally if others opt out first?
I caught up with a friend yesterday who told me he'd fulfilled all of his five or six New Year's resolutions except one (to get a girlfriend, which struck me as an ill-advised outcome-based goal to aim for). I've never been the type to set and execute New Year's resolutions, so I admire people with the fortitude to set good goals and achieve them. I think I've set out to read more books in Spanish the past few years, but I still haven't completed a single book in full.
I don't know exactly what I want to achieve the next year. Getting a full-time job is the obvious choice, but outside of that? I still don't want to give up on reading a few books in Spanish, but I'll need to do something differently (maybe instituting some sort of reward/punishment system) to ensure it doesn't fall by the wayside yet again. I'd also like to start learning Korean and maybe ASL again.
Along that vein, I read a post about the Proust questionnaire recently which reminded me that I still need to tackle Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time), along with other heavy hitters I've been putting off, like Borges and David Foster Wallace. I read a decent number of books this year, and I'm getting to the point where I need to start pushing myself to read more difficult books, rather than the next pop-psych cover that catches my eye in the bookstore. I'd like to be the kind of person that reads Proust and Tolstoy and Borges, and the only thing that stands between me and that Scholarly Misu is reading the books, a realization both liberating and crushing in its simplicity.
I know I've written and spoken at length about how much I want 2023 to be over, but now that there are mere hours left in the year I find the hope I have for 2024 tainted with dread. I've been trying to relax and not think too much about what awaits me in the new year (a likely grueling job search, a new part-time job, lots of soul searching), but I know that when the calendar says 2024 that I'll have no more excuses to not dedicate myself fully to the job search. And I'm scared!! I don't know if I'm ready yet, but as they say, there is no way out but through.
