Shall I commit to being interesting?

I found myself last night in conversation with one of my close friends, to whom I began to attempt to explain (justify?) this past year of my life. Variously, I said that I had moved out of a sort of existentialist phase and into an unwelcome nihilism. Or I had been depressed. Or I had been removed from established social structures that kept me healthy and thinking. Perhaps my focus had moved outward. Or inward. Or I had lost it altogether.

I gave up trying to explain as I realized that all of these were part of the truth, none were themselves the truth, and that I couldn’t parse out exactly what was the source of my languid, reclusive year. I could, however, say rather firmly that I don’t want next year to be the same.

At the end of the conversation, I found in myself a sort of recommitment to the old existentialist struggle. Mind you, I’ve a fair bit of cynicism and more than a sense of embarrassment attached to this (I can only take existentialists seriously for so long), but while I’m searching for a larger meaning, I’ll continue to create my own.

More basically, I am recommitted to life – to being and doing and interacting, to working, to thinking, to all of the things I have put off for a whole year now. If you are reading this, give me a call – let’s go do something.

I’m not sure whether this blandiose “commitment” will amount to anything, but we will see. One of the things I would like to do is write more, which means both blogging more and writing more on my own. Writing does not develop on its own, and it does degrade through lack of use; looking back on papers written in a flurry of activity last year, I am reminded what I can do when the stars are properly aligned. They have not been so aligned lately.

I will force them into place.