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While I’m not much for formal lists, I do like to make some resolutions for change or improvement each year. Last year I was pretty good at following through on at least half of them and fair on most of the rest. Here are a few of mine for 2009, no particular order:

Read more books that are out of my field – especially those about Science:

While I’m an avid reader I noticed recently that my reading habits have gotten pretty narrow in the last few years and that’s not good. While drilling down on subjects that one already knows well increases expertise, learning new information is a critical catalyst for creativity and insight. Science holds so many keys for future evolution as a society that I feel a need to get a better grasp on the potential of major scientific trends. Book suggestions here from readers are welcome.

Become a better informed, more upscale, drunkard:

Excepting hot summer days and certain events, my consumption of beer has dwindled down to very occasional bottles of really good microbrew.  Wine and scotch are more appealing at social occasions or at dinner and I’d like to learn more about them. Not so much to become a connoisseur as to know what the hell I’m talking about and not waste money on bad selections. I picked up some Glenlivet for my friend Shane’s holiday roadtrip stopover but, alas, the Wizard & co. lost their way in Wisconsin 😉 and never arrived.

Diversify my workouts:

Having done bodybuilding and powerlifting for over twenty years, I’m experiencing some wear and tear issues from the repetitive stress as well as boredom. Every January, I tighten up my diet and intensify my training but this year I’m going to widen the spectrum of exercises, do more conditioning and try periodic cross-training.  I’d like to jump back into martial arts like Dan from Madison  ( though not Muay Thai, I ache enough from lifting weights) but given the time constraints of grad school, that will have to wait until 2010.

Take the kids on more “field trips”:

The Eldest and the Son of Zenpundit are now at an age where they will be able to appreciate museums, cultural events, outdoor sites and doing new things. Time to get out and explore!

Set and pursue strategic goals but include “downtime” as one of them:

I have to say that my lifestyle since midsummer was too frenetic to be healthy. While I had a lot of concrete and significant accomplishments in 2008 compared to previous years, I also took on too much, left many tasks unfinished, failed to follow up on occasion and shortchanged my best in order to do “more”. I fell into the habit of sleeping around 4 hours a night in order to read more, write, blog or get in mundane tasks and I’d keep it up until I either got sick or lapsed into unproductive vegging. It’s too much and I’m going to schedule more “unplugged” time and learn to say “No” to low priority or non-value added tasks ( this will be the hardest resolution for me to keep).

What are your resolutions ?

Flagg707 has a speculative post at Futurejacked that I think most readers hear will find stimulating and fun to read:

Socionomic Trendspotting for 2009

A Continued Surge in Magical Thinking

Socionomics posits that during waves of positive social mood, “practical thinking” is dominant over “magical thinking,” and a belief in science and reason dominates. During waves of negative social mood the magical thinking, with its distrust (if not hatred of) reason and science rises to a dominant position in the mass social “mind.”

My personal interpretation of this is that magical thinking actually begins to manifest during the fifth wave of a postive mood surge – where faith and hope outstrips a reasoned evaluation of the economic “fundamentals” and continues into the waves of negative mood. Either way, we can expect a lot of anti-science and anti-rationality types of behavior to explode in politics and in university settings. Hopefully it won’t go as negative as it did in Kampuchea, but we are dealing with a downturn of historic proportions, so keep in mind that herds of humans are capable of staying irrational for very, very long periods of time.

….Expect a Wave of Independence Movements

I thought this would be a more dominant theme during 2008 than it turned out to be, with only Kosovo shearing off from Serbia and, at the very end of the year, the Ruthenians declaring independence in Ukraine. As Abkhazia and Ossetia were already de facto independent from Georgia, I won’t count them. I doubt 2009 will be as calm.

Socionomics holds that during times of negative mood factionialism increases and the various “tribes” that make up a country turn towards their subgroup and away from the idea of an inclusive and tolerant society. This is the stuff of independence movements, of civil wars, of hollow states and of a return to primary loyalties.

Read the rest here.