Life, in my opinion, is pretty pointless. Some may think the objective is to bring glory to God or to accumulate as much wealth as possible. I however think that the universe and our lives are inherently meaningless. Not because I am an atheist, I am not so simple. I am at my core a hypocritical cynic: my cognitive self lives in a bunker ducking the less sophisticated, contemptible, aspects of me – my emotional, physical and spiritual components. These latter few are in a perennial struggle to dominate one another. Whoever’s on top for the moment gets to taunt the bunkered down rationalist with wisps of threats, intimidations, false promises, and insults.

Anyhow, I believe that even the people with the strongest faiths devise for themselves whatever meaning they experience. We bring our own meaning to this world, and that makes us responsible (and I can be very judgmental). Although the universe really is meaningless at its pith, we are not able to completely and willfully redefine it. We as individuals have been built on a foundation of meaning assembled during our development and socialization. We can recognize the foundation, even if we cannot remove it. For me personally, the knowledge that parts of me with powerful influence (such as emotions, first reactions, the tendency to classify in certain ways) are not innate brings me a sense of peace. This is the bunker in which I hide while the rest of me is busy recreating the emotional equivalent of the German western front of the First World War.

So life is pointless, was my point. The days pass, time moves on, and what of it. We did not choose to be here, it simply just happened. We don’t really choose to continue (although a pedantic existentialist might say not ending it is a choice). Time just passes, and we have the option of doing something with this time. We could let it pass indolently or busy ourselves with some activity. Either choice is as good, really, and neither will have any impact on anything ultimately. But that nagging foundation within me has got me inclined to think that I better do something with my time, as a means to alleviate that emotionally painful thought “the man I will be becomes the man I have been.”

And so allow me to introduce my new Goal Oriented Living™ perspective, just in time for New Year’s resolutions. This idea springs in part from my experience this year, where I took it upon myself to accomplish a couple of goals including graduating from the SIRLS program within a year and changing my diet. The successful conclusion of both of these has left me feeling really empty and hollow. Which really wasn’t what I had intended or expected (I mean shouldn’t I feel good?). Instead I just feel dread, a dread more painful than the anguish of trying to accomplish seemingly un-accomplishable goals (that are within my reach if only if I can defeat my terrible self image). And so you see there’s an option I have here: feel terrible dread or less terrible anguish, and I am choosing the latter.

In 2007 I will accomplish the following goals:

Body – Run a marathon (created a training schedule)*, reduce weight to under 200lb (currently at about 215lb – was 250lb a year ago).
Mind – Learn C# and ASP.NET, strengthen my Python, XML, and regular expression skills.
Spirit – Finish Anna Karenina, read the Aeneid, and the Divine Comedies.
Career – Make manager.
Financial – follow my (intensive) student-loan repayment plan.
Relationship – have a child with my wife.
Development – create a new version of my Color Tool.

*I tried it last year and failed. I will succeed this year.

These goals also fit in with my new ‘metrics are important’ outlook. You see I will create plans to succeed; I will measure my progress, and re-evaluate and retool as needed. If I fail at anything I will be able to know why, readjust, and retry. This will set the direction for my activities this next year, center my thinking, and prevent me from going off the path. When I am approached with or develop an idea that may take up resources and time I will be able to evaluate to what extent the idea(s) fit in with my prior established goals, and if they do not fit in, I will discard them. Commitment will be essential, and I will apply the same level of commitment to these goals as I did to my SIRLS graduation in 2006, when fear of marriage failure and bankruptcy motivated me to succeed.

I had an idea about creating a self-published news social-software site, but looks like someone’s already done it: Newstoday. There is no voting it seems, but it is a nice use of AJAX. One half is ‘public broadcast’ where anyone can submit news, the other half is editor news. It is a very nice looking site, too. There is a tiny annoying and or cute sound that plays when you first load the page, but since it is an AJAX powered site you will only hear it the first time. I don’t know if it is of any real use for news yet, it has a technical/design slant to it.