The New Year will soon be upon us and it is time to pay attention to that time honored tradition—New Year’s Resolutions. Or is it? For many years, a greater potion of my life, I dutifully made New Year’s resolutions that I didn’t keep. Some times those resolutions were merely mental notes I made to myself. Other times they were quite elaborate, written out in great detail and on occasion burned in ritualistic ceremony or conversely put away in safekeeping so that they could be taken out and referred to periodically—that to keep them fresh and, supposedly, maintain my diligence in keeping them. Nothing worked. Sooner or later all of them were broken. Shattered. Trashed. I became a failure—to my resolutions and to myself. That situation caused me a great deal of anxiety. Could I never be true to my good intentions?

Then, quite a few years ago I got wise. Finally I made a resolution that I could keep and I have kept that resolution for many, many years. I made a resolution to never, ever make another New Year’s resolution. That has worked. Through New Years of storm and New Years of tranquil plenty I have remained faithful. I have never, since that successful New Year, made another resolution. It’s not that I have ceased improving—at least I hope not—it’s that I have stopped trying to do it under synthetic conditions. I have made my improvements when I felt I needed to and when I was ready. For instance, about twenty-five or so years ago I quit smoking, but that occurred, as I recall, in June or July. I was sitting in the kitchen one day talking with friends and the pipe I was smoking started to taste bad. I put it up on a convenient shelf and never again lit it. Would I have been better off to wait until New Years and try to quit then?

I have since talked to people that have tried unsuccessfully for years to quit smoking—including using the time-honored New Years resolution method. I don’t think I am special having been able to quit so easily. I think that people are simply better to make changes in themselves when they really feel that it is time for them to do so, in other words when they truly want to. Moreover, the pressure of the New Year’s resolution has just the opposite effect. A person feels obligated to make some improvement, picks something he thinks he or she should do, then, because he or she doesn’t really want to, is not successful. The result is not only no improvement made but an additional feeling of guilt because of having failed. Probably that makes the next try at improving oneself harder.

So the New Year is here and the push is on to make resolutions. If you really feel you should, go right ahead. But it’s best to make sure they concern things you’re seriously ready to change. If not, then wait until you’re ready. If you’re serious about yourself, the time will come. Maybe some time in June or July will be better. And you’ll be better off for having waited.

We are entering into the Season of Peace. Every year at this time there are pronouncements of joy, harmony and good will and of the brotherhood of all mankind. Every year we hear these wishes of good cheer and every year we are left with disappointments. News bulletins of political strife, social ailments, disagreements and war continue to appear on a daily basis. How, we ask, are we ever going to achieve this peace for which we long and for which we seem to look in vain?

But is that peace so elusive? So it seems, if we confine ourselves to the news reports in the popular media or to the belligerent actions of our society’s leaders and those of other nations. But the good news is that peace is much more common in the world than we realize. Dig deeper, below the surface of the attention-getting articles and video clips that are normal fare in our media, and we can find instances of peace that exist now—even blueprints of how to achieve it. There are cultures in this world that live in peace, some that have done so for centuries and some that have consciously elected to do so only recently. There are those that have chosen and now possess an existence based on peace after having lived a warlike way of life for hundreds of years.

Many such peace cultures are small groups of people that are essentially hunter-gatherers and seem far removed from the complex existence of our modern world. But in these basic cultures can be found the patterns of behavior that lead to and are even necessary for a peaceful existence. By taking note and following these it is possible to structure any society along peaceful lines. And the fact that it is possible for a modern nation to follow the ways of peace is exhibited by the nations that have elected to do so. They exist. And as philosopher, sociologist and poet Kenneth Boulding said, “Anything that exists is possible.”

It is possible, but are we willing to live according to the principles of peace? Are we willing to learn new ways of living? Are we willing to learn new definitions of words and new ways of dealing with concepts such as right, wrong, competition, punishment, cooperation? We have been taught for so long that ours is the most advanced society in history, can we accept the fact that we have something to learn from others—especially from societies we think of as being inferior to ours. Do we really want peace that much?

Yet I believe that over and above all of this, comes the hardest lesson of all and that is the simple fact that peace does not come from “out there.” It does not come some ethereal plane, miraculously appearing at a certain season or at any other time to bless us. It does not come from some authority or prominent individual in our midst. The truth is that it does not come from outside of us at all. It comes from within and starts with a genuine desire to have peace and a willingness to do whatever is required to achieve it.

Peace comes from within and from there radiates out into the world. It is up to us to transfer it from our own beings into that physical world. The Season of Peace is always with us, always ready to be actualized. It is simply up to us—each of us—to see that that occurs.

The Holiday Season has come—or snuck up on me—again. Sometimes I feel that way. Perhaps one of the reasons for that is the fact that since I no longer drive I don’t get out into the stores as often as I used to. For that reason I am not as exposed to the holiday advertising as I once was. I am not informed of its presence sufficiently early so that I can anticipate its coming for two or three months.

Still, I set up and decorated my little Christmas tree on December 1^st, which, I feel, is early enough for the holiday.  I did that for the first time in my life last year. Prior to that, my custom was to decorate for the holidays on Christmas Eve and keep the decorations up only for the twelve nights of Christmas. I changed my custom simply because I felt like it and I’ve been very satisfied with that change. I had fun accomplishing the set-up of the tree this year and it’s pleasant having the glow of the colorful tree lights and the candles in the window every night. It’s nice to be able to enjoy them for a whole month.

Perhaps what really snuck up on me was the holiday spirit. I was aware of that holiday spirit last year when I decorated the tree early, but had no explanation for it. I simply enjoyed it. I had the distinct feeling of anticipation and good will that one is supposed to feel during the holiday season but so seldom does. At the same time I was able to ignore all the mundane commercialism that is such a prominent part of the season. It’s the same this year so I suppose this might be a permanent part of me from now on. Where it came from I’m not sure. Perhaps it’s a memory of a simpler time superimposed on our present-day headlong dash for enjoyment. Then again, it may be a blessing of the season, a variation of the Christmas, Past, Future and Present to introduce the fact that there is a great deal that is worth while in the season that does not depend on the commercial hype we attach to it. It may be a reward for clinging to the belief that something of the kind does exist, a little taste of what should and could be.

Whatever it is, I’m not going to worry too much about it. I’ll just enjoy it, be thankful for it and hope that it will continue to be a part of my life for the holiday season and, if possible, extend into the rest of the year as much as it can.

The Winter Storm Warning of recent days reminded me of a storm that occurred many years past. I believe it was 1950 that the snowfall occurred. I was living in Wexford, PA at the time and was in my first year of college at what was then Carnegie Institute of Technology. The snowfall came when the school was on the break for Thanksgiving and began, as I recall, some days after Thanksgiving Day. It continued for some time and when it was over left some thirty-plus inches on the ground.

That was a lot of snow to shovel and my Dad and I spent some time clearing our long drive. Ridding the public roads of snow took a long time as well and the Pittsburgh area was a few days getting back to normal. Carnegie Tech was a few days getting back to normal as well and our Thanksgiving vacation was extended. I was into hunting then and the deer season came into being the first week in December so of course I took the extra time off to look for deer. There wasn’t much chance of finding them in thirty inches of snow and the deer were safe from my hunting buddy and me. But that was all right, We had a good time anyway and I enjoyed my extended vacation and returned to Tech about a week later than originally scheduled.

When I heard the recent storm warning, I had thoughts of a repeat of that 1950 snow, but it never came to be. This year’s Thanksgiving storm fell far short, a few inches in this area, though I understand other areas were hit much harder. It seems in this day of mass communication the warnings of winter weather bear an urgency and an alarm that I do not remember in years past. I’m not sure why that is. I have talked to other people who ascribe it to everything from the need of the media to raise their ratings to the greater difficulty in predicting weather in recent years to an alliance between the media and supermarket chains for selling milk, bread and toilet paper. At any rate, I don’t believe there will be people fifty years from now reminiscing about the big snow that occurred during the Thanksgiving holiday of 2013.

After I wrote the above, I went online to check details and my memory. Wikipedia titles the storm as the Great Appalachian Storm of November 1950. It formed on November 24, reached maximum intensity on November 25 and dissipated on November 30, which was Thanksgiving Day of 1950. I was a bit off on my memory of dates. It was classified as an extratropical cyclone that affected 22 states and dumped a maximum snowfall of fifty seven inches in some areas; winds peaked at 160 miles per hour in the New England highlands. In all, there were 353 fatalities due to the storm and total damages of $66.7 million (1950 dollars). The affected area was the eastern third of the United States and southeast Canada.

The Pittsburgh area received 30.5 inches of snow and a subsequent warm spell in early December resulted in river flooding.

In England horse raising country, it is the belief that a pasture should contain no less that eighty different plant species. If it contains less than that number it is considered to be “in decline.” Maintaining land within healthy standards has contributed to the raising of prize winning horses in that country. These facts are contained in a book entitled Back from the Brink by Australian farmer and horse breeder Peter Andrews in which he discusses Australia’s problems with its deteriorating landscape.

Andrews speaks out in favor of biodiversity elsewhere in his book. All plants including weeds, he claims, are important. They add to the soil things that it needs to be healthy and productive. They are necessary to ecology. This is in contrast with the custom I have noticed in this country where the ideal lawn, for instance, consists of one kind of uniformly close-clipped grass, a lawn which is regularly sprayed with chemicals to kill any but the desired plant in an effort to maintain a “perfect” lawn.

When reading Andrews’ book, I couldn’t help but transfer his observations of plants and their worth to the ecosystem with our concept of the place of individuals in society. Our society rewards a member in accordance with its estimate of that member’s worth. It encourages and sometimes dictates that its members follow certain fields of study, be trained in one of a few limited occupations and follow a pre-designed route to what is termed success. In a sense, society “weeds out” its undesirables, using our money system to insure that this is done.

On the surface, that may sound logical and advantageous. By such a method, it is supposed, each member of society contributes what society needs and is rewarded according to that contribution. But is our society, like the person who strives to have a “perfect” lawn, heading in the wrong direction? Does our confusion of need and want and a misinterpretation of what is valuable cause us to concentrate on a crop that is inferior and actually detrimental to our well being?

Every person in any society has unique talents and abilities that have the potential of offering to society unique benefits. Under our present system many of these individuals and the talents and abilities they possess are wasted. It would be better for society to encourage and enable each of its members to find and develop those talents and abilities to the highest extent possible. By doing so, the society might discover it has prospects that are richer, more fertile and far superior than those of its present pre-ordained plan.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the only thing we have—any of us—is beliefs. We look for truths, think we have one, and then something tells us something that contradicts our truth. So, based on this new evidence we change our minds to another truth. We believe something different. For instance, for a long time people thought the world was flat. They believed it was. That fact was their truth. Then they learned differently. They had to change their belief. Similarly, there is a belief among many people that war is inevitable, that there has always been war among men, that it is an essential part of human nature and is inevitable. That is a truth for many. However, anthropologists have shown that this is not so, that man’s existence on this earth has been mostly peaceful and war is recent and due to factors of our own creation.

So it goes. Beliefs change. There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact it’s a good thing. As new information is gained about the nature of the world and the nature of people, we have to adapt to conform to the new information. There would be a problem if we didn’t change and that’s where the real problems start.

In fact, it’s a relief to recognize that your beliefs are that, only beliefs and not truth—or worse, Truth with a capital T. If you have only beliefs then everyone else has only beliefs as well. With that attitude, it’s possible to recognize that you or the other person may be wrong. With a little talk and a little digging you may come up with some ideas as to whose belief is better, or perhaps that the beliefs of both of you lack something. That sort of attitude is not possible if you believe that you have the Truth. There can be only one Truth, so obviously if you have the Truth then the other fellow has to be wrong. It gets really complicated when one of your beliefs is that it is your duty to see that the other person has to accept the Truth that you know. That’s the way wars start.

So, I’m willing to believe that we have only beliefs. It saves arguing and makes life simpler and pleasanter. Anyway, that’s what I believe at the present time.

I’ve been having a spate of electric and electronic difficulties lately. My first problem, occurring more that a month ago, was my old TV set, which I use for playing DVD’s and VCR’s. That was relatively minor and eventually solved by switching remotes. The next problem, a more serious one, occurred when the breaker for the kitchen circuit in my house tripped during the night several times over the period of a few weeks. I’d find out about it in the morning, check the circuit, find nothing wrong, reset the breaker and have no difficulty—for several days. Then it would happen again. Finally one morning I found a night light I have plugged into an outlet above a counter no longer worked. I unplugged it and discovered the case of it cracked. Could this be the cause of my problem? I bought a new night light, plugged it in and no more tripped breakers. All problems solved, I thought.

Not so.

The next thing to give me problems was my scanner. That was reasonable. The scanner was old and had done good service. I got it working long enough to finish a job or two before it finally stopped doing anything. Nothing to do but buy a new one. Simple. But scanners are different now. They’re combined with printers and other devices that make it possible to print, FAX, telegraph and contact Mars all at the same time through the use of one bulky machine. To make a long story short, I had a time finding a scanner that was not joined with any other machine just like the trusty one that had given such good service for so many years. I did, though, and had then solved all my problems.

Again not so—my printer ran out of black ink. Solution? Simple. Fill the cartridge. I’d done that many times. Only this time it didn’t work. None of my old tricks worked. I couldn’t get the cartridge to work, either. I finally sent it off to a firm that fills cartridges and in several days it came back good as new. Now, all the problems were solved. Nope. The color cartridge ran out of ink. I took on the job of filling it with great trepidation. Could anything go wrong with this operation? It did. I thought I’d messed up and ruined the cartridge. I didn’t have the patience to fool around too long. I just sent the cartridge off to the ink people and, lo and behold, it came back in first rate shape. I’d had enough of problems, however. I got two extra cartridges, one color and one black. I got a spare cartridge for my black and white printer, too. No more interruptions were to be tolerated.

Everything was now operational.

Then the speaker on my cell phone quit. No way to fix it. I accepted the inevitable and got a new phone. The first day I had it I lost it. I never before lost a cell phone but I managed to lose this one. That is the most recent of my electric/electronic problems.

I have been trying to make some sense out of this sequence of events. I believe there is significance in everything that happens. What about this? Electricity is energy. Maybe there is something amiss with the energy of my life—too little or not directed appropriately? Am I misusing it or wasting it? The devices that were affected had to do with communication of one type or another. My main activity in life is writing. That’s a form of communication. Is there something wrong there? Is it the writing itself or perhaps the way I’m using it. I think there’s something to that—something that I don’t, at the present, understand. I’ll have to think about that. As Richard Bach wrote, (and I paraphrase), there is never a prob1em (or a series of them) that does not have a gift for you in its hands.