This new year my resolution will be to focus on things that are truly important. To see the big picture. To truly live the life with which I have been blessed, and fully experience all of the pleasures it has to offer.

In this post-modern, "digital", virtual-everything era, true experience has been eclipsed by mere image. Images are everywhere, images are eveything. These days, anything that is not immediately reducible to the simplest visual object is not considered valuable. What truly matters to people these days is appearance.

Of course, for something to "appear", there must be someone to see it, to make its appearance meaningful. Naturally, the meaning of an image depends entirely on who is perceiving it. It is thus that, to most people around here, what truly matters is everyone else, and the meaning of life is derived from the perceptions of others.

This is an extremely seductive way to live. Some people adhere to this mode of life more than others. Some people believe in every stereotype and belief that their immediate surroundings present them with: gay is bad, God is good, taking your time is bad, money is good, blah blah blah.

Others are more conscious of what they're thinking, yet still build their lives around the inescapable thought that everyone is looking at them, and they have to look good. Some try to look the same as those who they think are looking, others try to look different. Almost nobody in our culture, myself included, can fully escape this.

But escape it we must, for it is outside of this focus on what everyone else is thinking that we find truth in ourselves. If everyone is busy looking at everyone else, what's the point? The point is inside of our own individual souls.

There is so much beauty and joy to be experienced in this world which we deny ourselves for fear that others may not approve. A few common examples include the true beauty of the human body, the true beauty of the human voice, and the true beauty of human love. The full richness of these things is not to be found on popular magazine covers, in hit radio singles, or in Hollywood blockbusters. Yet anyone who finds beauty outside of these cultural safe-zones is ridiculed.

The feeling of releasing oneself from the arbitrary chains of ubiquitous pop culture is indescribably good. It is a beautiful freedom, a knowledge that one is able to truly live a real, full life, a feeling of complete control over one's ability to experience pleasure. It is also remarkably difficult to achieve.

With the vast majority of the masses surrounding us reinforcing the strict, limiting codes presented in the steady stream of images raining down upon us, it is difficult to find the strength to break through to broader horizons. It is so easy to build our self-evaluations on the standards that surround us that many of us forget we are doing it.

Money is the all-purpose defense. Marilyn Manson is a freak, but he's a rich freak. The same goes for Billy Graham. Keeping busy, that's what life's about, right? We've all got to have something to show for ourselves, right? Well, maybe.

We all want the world to miss us when we're no longer a part of it. We all want to have an effect, to leave something behind. This is human instinct, and it is good. But the route to this end lies not in determining our actions according to what we think others see. Those who have truly affected the world have been truly comfortable with themselves, and have used their own strengths and personalities to achieve great things. And in order to truly achieve, we must truly understand ourselves and those who surround us.

Achievement is not driving an expensive car, or dating a model, or being a radio star, or being a household name. Achievement is personal. It is being a strong parent. It is overcoming addiction. It is reflecting beauty. It is many things which may not win an admiring gaze from people we pass on the street.

Personally, I want to experience beauty. I resolve to open my spiritual doors as wide as I can to take in all that this world has to show me, and to reserve my judgement for that which stands in the way of living a full, rich life.

This is my new year's resolution.