2020: New Years Resolutions

I ended my resolutions post last year by promising I would not diet or exercise. Well, I broke the last part of the resolution when I took up running in February. This confirms my suspicion that the best way to motivate yourself is to resolve to do the opposite. So this year I resolve to stop exercising, eat poorly, be very unkind, and just be generally irresponsible and unpleasant.

My travel writing aspirations were only half-successful. Admittedly, I did compensate somewhat by writing long posts on the big NYC museums, but the list of travel writing keeps growing. Here are the big ones:

• Asturias
• Chartres
• Istanbul
• Marseille
• Monticello
• Naples & Pompeii
• Normandy
• Padua
• Paris Cemeteries
• Venice
• Versailles
• Washington D.C.

And this is not all.

In books, I got through most of my resolved reading from last year. My main omissions were the works of Archimedes, Apollonius, and Sir Thomas Heath’s book on Greek mathematics. Apart from this, one of my big goals this year is to read more about economics. I have a large biography of John Maynard Keynes sitting on my shelf. I also have a few scattered books and lectures to guide me. Hopefully I can make some headway in this most dismal of sciences.

In literature, these are the authors in my sights: Lord Byron, Henry James, D.H. Lawrence. In the history of science, here are the big names: Lavoisier, Lyell, and Faraday. And in philosophy I hope to finish reading the works of Plato.

I will do at least one more season (10 episodes) of my podcast. But my big goal is to put more energy into getting published. This includes short stories, articles, and hopefully my old novel. Wish me luck!