Turn of the year musings

I used to think until fairly recently that people don't change. I still think so, by and large, but have mellowed down the firmness with which I think so. On the one hand, a person's character is something I'm still positive does not change, but on the other hand, I do agree now that it is possible for people to start experiencing the same old things in new ways that they had not known earlier. Somewhere in the beginning of last year, I found myself having entered a new kind of life where I spend a massive proportion of my waking hours entirely alone. I wouldn't say it changed the person I am, but things have started to happen that never did before. For example, I get unusually pensive while taking a shower. It works like magic, as if the knob of the shower were a switch into my sometimes dark, often colourful past. The moment I stand before the warm water springing onto me, I have recollections, very fine and vivid and almost hyper-real, of episodes of my past. Only I don't get to choose the episodes. It could be anything from a long day spent waiting for a phonecall, an evening where my dad corrected my spellings, to fighting over the sole plate of chowmein with five of my contending classmates, or reliving the heated anticipation of walking into a fresh acquaintance's apartment while she unnecessarily brings her cat for both of us to play with. It's amazing what a hot shower can do. And how life comes back to the forever nondescript present, the second the shower is stopped.

It's not a resolution, but I've planned to update the blog daily with a new thing I learn. Mostly, it's just to impel myself to keep learning, for I'm starting to realize that time spent away from any kind of learning really rusts your brains and makes you slower. And older. Which reminds me, I don't like getting older. In two months, I will be 29. I'm already at the age that if I were a world-class tennis player, which I'm far from, I would be considered a fading veteran by now. On my 29th birthday, I will take a picture of myself, and compare it to my older pictures, and try to conclude that I hardly look older. I am willing to resort to Adobe Photoshop to reach my goal.