NYR or NRA - You Decide!

Time is fast approaching for the solipsistic solstice soliloquy in which our hero, troubled soul, fatal flaw, bad luck / bad management, harangues the crowd around the Tannenbaum of ancient myth and metaphor on their dismal failings and on his exhuberant successings in the course of the previous solar cycle. The 10 Things I Did This Year But You Didn't Ha Ha speech.

Thankfully it is not here yet. Time, E@L means. It will be here soon though, he is semi-reliably informed by the voices inside his head (they obviously have nowhere more pleasant to spend their holidays).

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However, E@L is using this absence of Time advantageously and is planning ahead (ahead? before? now? - what does this temporary absence of temporality mean? What, indeed, does 'temporary' mean in such a situation) for his New Year Resolutions (NYR).

They are thus: get fatter, become less fit and be more morose.


For, as one never keeps one's NYR, E@L is a shoo-in for being a Slimmer, Fitter, Happier blogger/facebooker/porn-downloader for 2012. (FUCK! 2000 and fucking twelve and he's still alive!) The psychological ploy being, um, employed, you will have indubitably inferred, is that of the Reverse Type.

Not that E@L hasn't had a lot to smile about in the preceding thirteen full moons (see below, re: medications) but, as mentioned above, the Time has not yet arrived to enumerate and discuss these... Hang-on, there's a (conveniently timed) knock at the door. Nope, still not Time, it's one of those otherwise unemployable telephone company salesman, wants to know if E@L would care to buy Telstra. E@L told him if he didn't leave he'd shoot a kitten.

Yep, gone, see? Reverse psychology!

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Another tactic he has appropriated, more of a rethinking than a theft really, is one he heard first on some public radio interview on the way to Melbourne for dinner last night (not at Rockpool, will complain later when the meds wear off). There was this crazy Yank (Canuck? who can tell? who cares?) going on about denial. (E@L wished the man wasn't talking denial, seriously, he doesn't need to listen to people speaking about denial. He doesn't want to hear about it. It doesn't concern him. There is most emfatically, nothing to deny! Who, what, me? Another slice of Christmas pudding, more cream, custard, ice-cream, sure! Bring it on!)

Well, if you listened to the podcast linked to, or read the book you will know that Paul Barclay is more on about self-control than denial, but hey, yes, same thing, the tactic he suggested you see is to scare yourself straight, to anti-bribe yourself, in a way. Here is a foolproof technique to guarantee that you will keep (or not keep, if that is your cunning plan) your NYR.

How? you feebly entreat.

Answer. Set-up a truly negative incentive for yourself. Not a disincentive, that's different, that's how the Philip's Healthcare Cosmodemonic Healthcare Company's annual bonus system used to work. Not just just something of the hey, you don't want to do that sort of thing, not the "she wants to make love but the football is on" sort of don't-want-to-do, but something you really... REALLY... DON'T... WANT... TO... DO.

Such as live-donate BOTH kidneys to an ailing pedophile or a large amount of money to a cause you find completely untenable. Say Scientology, some Nazi skinhead thugs christmas booze and knuckle-duster the fags party, The National Rifle Association, or the poor.

And when he says set up, E@L doesn't mean the "Yeah, I promise I'll do that," sort of set up, but no, get serious, hand over complete control of the forfeit to a third party, such as your evil half-brother (your Nazi, Scots heritage, creepy pedophile, gun-toting Scientologist with no ready cash half-brother who is on dialysis.) Choose a person who is just dying [oops, bad unintentional joke] for you to fail so he can abscond to another state of mind with your cash or your urinary tract, that sort of set up. Your bank-manager would also fit the bill, a lawyer, your ex-wife, your current wife. E@L is prepared to hold large sums of cash on your behalf if you are in extremis.

Yep. Negative consequences for the world if you break your NYR. You fail your task(s) and bang, your money/kidneys are gone, your children are no longer safe, George W Bush is wearing a swastika (and no he hasn't gone Buddhist) and running for re-election and all stem-cell research grinds to a mushy halt.

Once it becomes apparent that you have blown it, there will be no changing your mind, no altering your plan, no rescinding of your Last Will and Testicle. It is done. You just made the world a worse place to live for several cuddly endangered species. Happy with yourself loser? We all should hope not. But we'd love to hear what The Authorities will says about your $10,000 donation to the Get Some Anthrax* And Put It In Richard Dawkins Tea Society... (Um... they'd probably facilitate it!)

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E@L, on pain meds for neuropathy that stabilise his moods (as a side-effect only), really is in a happy(ish) state most of the time nowadays (not counting the explosive issue of $80 for an undercooked here, overcooked there tri-partite collection of gristle and tendon they called a steak at Neil Perry's Rockpool Grill at Crown Casino last Sunday - sorry couldn't wait for the next blog post), so he has to try hard to think of some crucial issue, some key cause, some misguided belief system that he will find sufficiently abhorrent, in-your-face wrong and cruelly harmful enough to fire up strong negative feelings in his serotonin re-uptake modified existence... There must be something other than bad steak or the usual pub conversations with his friends that will get him riled and angry.

There must be something he would just oh-so hate to happen that he is compelled to stop it, some idea so against his ingrained world-view that he would hate to see it advance, something so completely bad that he MUST complete his NYR and do good things (good things? E@L don't need no stinking good things!) instead. (Reversely or forwardly.)

But nothing really... creative comes to mind...

Any suggestions?

Please, everybody, help E@L achieve/not achieve, forgotten which, his NYR.

or we'll shoot this kitten.

E@L


* There are real, genuine anthrax spores in a biological research facility just a few kms from where E@L sits, IKYN. Muhaha!