The Wit's Guide to Resolutions

Or, arbitrary stupid goals

The Smoker, Edouard Manet, 1866

James Agate, a leading British theatre critic from between the wars, is described in his Encyclopedia Britannica entry as having a “perverse but loveable personality.” He published nine volumes of his diaries under the title Ego, and in January 1942 he made these two resolutions:

1. To refrain from saying witty, unkind things, unless they are really witty and irreparably damaging.

2. To tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time.

— James Agate

The resolution with a built-in escape hatch is overengineered; they’re all made to be broken. But that doesn’t make them self-defeating. 

Take the case of Samuel Pepys, another London diarist who often recorded solemn pledges to give up things that gave him joy. On the last day of 1662, he pledged to renew “the oaths that God put into my heart to take against wine, plays, and other expenses.” In 1663, Pepys broke that oath many times, most notably when he put to paper the world’s first known wine review. In April of that year, he “drank a sort of French wine, called Ho Bryan, that hath a good and most particular taste that I never met with.” 

Had Pepys steadfastly kept his resolution, an historical first would have been missed. With the occasional lapse, he reduced his expenses while meeting good new tastes.

Knowing that the resolution can be bent, what should you resolve? You needn’t be a writer to copy the resolution of archy the cockroach, the key-hopping insect who filled space in Don Marquis’ newspaper columns: “better stuff and more rhymes.” As archy continued in his unpunctuated style:

i sing the glad noo year
thats tending toward the norm
my song is one of cheer
im going to reform
— Don Marquis

In truth, the content of your resolution isn’t the point. Tamara Shopsin explains as much right in the title of her jaunty memoir Arbitrary Stupid Goal. The illustrator’s father would often tell of the Wolfawitzes, a family who took a two-week road trip to “to as many towns, parks, and counties as they could that contained their last name: Wolfpoint, Wolfville, Wolf Lake, etc.”

Along the way, they stopped at whatever caught their interest. By the end of the trip, they agreed it was the best they’d ever had. Hence the Arbitrary Stupid Goal:

A goal that isn’t too important makes you live in the moment, and still gives you a driving force. This driving force is a way to get around the fact that we will all die and there is no real point to life.

But with the ASG there is a point. It is not such an important point that you postpone joy to achieve it. It is just a decoy point that keeps you bobbing along, allowing you to find ecstasy in the small things, the unexpected, and the everyday.
— Tamara Shopsin

So by all means, resolve to cut out carbs, learn Esperanto, and ĉesu manĝi karbonhidratojn. Just don’t postpone joy or miss making history to do so.

Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.
— Mark Twain

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Quote Vote

“You've got a goal. I've got a goal. Now all we need is a football team.”
— Groucho Marx

My resolution for 2023 is to send you at least one more issue of this newsletter. But you need to tell me what it should be about, as you have dependably done for the last 25 weeks. 

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Speaking of…

Taking great leaps

Better living through jumpology

Cleaning up your act

The brutal art of the shower thought

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That was issue no. 182 of Get Wit Quick, a weekly newsletter that always gets to the decoy point. When someone asks about your resolution for next year, tell them 1080p. I guess Iraq was Paul Wolfowitz’s ASG. My book Elements of Wit: Mastering The Art of Being Interesting will help you lose weight if you swap the print copy for the ebook whilst standing on a scale. In 2023, tap every ❤️ you see.