The Ignorance of Being Earnest

In traditional New Year's Day fashion, there's an abundance of forgetting. Forgotten moments, memories, things the year has brought upon its humans with the likelihood that we would forget these ever important ironies. The constant countdown of news feeds coercing you into remembering the top ten things the Kardashians did this year, the top ten fads and follies, the top ten reminders that something actually happened this year that didn't concern you. With that comes the top ten New Year's Resolutions, the top ten ways to keep your resolutions, the top ten must-own products of 2012. Top ten trifles. Top ten things your most likely to forget by 2013. Top ten movies that will never be as good as Full Metal Jacket or Reservoir Dogs or Harold & Maude. I guess old habits do die hard, but isn't that the point of New Year's Resolutions? To cleanse the soul into believing it's all going to be for the better this next time around?

I think what happens isn't the trick of the addictions to your Xanax or Starbucks or French Fries or Cigarettes. It isn't your supplemental addictions to sex or hording or tattoos or love. It's the fact that your intrinsic sense of self has been built on the foundations of these addictions. The hardest part of quitting isn't nicotine or THC or alcohol, it's the pillars you built around yourself that supplant the needs of your personality. Your sense of self is lost in the confines of the smoker, the drunk, the stoner, the horder, the coffee-freak, the fatty, the broken heart. It's like a twisted version of The Breakfast Club.

It's also one of the reasons The Breakfast Club is a beautiful play on this philosophy.

A brain, an athlete, a basketcase, a princess, and a criminal are locked in a library on Saturday. From the confines of an authoritative state, these five misfits somehow come to grasp their true selves by relating to those who have no capacity to truly relate to their lives or feelings. The whole thing is a Queen of Hearts carousel in which each outdoes the other in depth of their follies. Their reasons why are driven from their personal hardships that no one else truly understands and this mythos works because its brilliantly executed as a breakdown of the psyche. Professional therapists aren't this good. As they address in the film, what's going to happen on Monday? As much as we'd like to believe their stories will change, the real problems in their life hasn't cease. The dad is neglectful, the parents don't care, the pressure to succeed and win are too great, life rolls on. We deliver these standards on site, a triumphant cleansing of the truth. But it hasn't change their situations much. If anything, it's complicated their representation of self that they've tried so hard to upkeep to this point in their lives. So you see, the story of five teens whose lives are changed forever by this one day in detention has only really restored their need for identity. Where the lie is defensive, the truth can be devastation.

This handful of truths, its the perspective of the individual. It's the way New Year's Resolutions are broken or kept, it's how ingrained this trait is in the person's personality. How much you think you need it to prepare you for the truth of your life?

I used to have a nose ring which I proudly wore as a statement of my individuality. Not a little diamond stud, but a full ring which provided for me a statement about who I am and how I am to be perceived by others. One day, for no good reason, I was driving with my friend and I asked her, "Do you think my nose ring defines my personality?" As this was something I often wondered when I stood in front of the mirror debating whether or not I should lose the extra hole in my nose, I was curious to hear a second opinion. Was the nose ring truly an appendage now? Had it been so long that taking it out would dishonor the identity I had built for myself?
"No, why?" my friend responded.
I promptly unhooked the ring from my nostril and threw it out the window.
Her mouth gaping, she let out a slight laugh and smiled at the spontaneity.

It was easy to quit my nose ring. It was impossible to justify buying a new one and I was ready to craft a new way for myself. You could say it was a very Breakfast Club moment for me.
But it didn't change my interactions or my reactions. It didn't change any philosophies or theologies or quantum theories. I may as well have cut my hair. Which is why expounding some long practiced, oft regretted habit isn't just for your well being, it's a true instance of personality crisis. Will my friends recognize me without it? How will it affect me as an individual? Will I be more stressed? Cranky? Overwhelmed? Sad? What part of me am I really giving up by disallowing my addiction, or trepidation, or exasperation? Can I truly overcome my sense of self for the amount of time which will actually change me as a person?
I don't believe that length of time to be a Saturday long.

To sum up, when it comes to resolutions, the question isn't really "can I give this up?" It makes up a mess of identity. The question comes down to, "Will I be losing a part of myself by taking this step away from old habits?" And, as the Breakfast Club taught us, the question shouldn't be either of those...it should always be, "What identity is gained by quitting A, B, or C?"
While the hardest part is giving up that part of your identity, the best thing to look forward to is the new form your identity could take. Because life without change isn't life, it's just a myriad of top ten lists waiting to go down in your obituary.