PART 4: CHOICE

A New Year's jeremiad on resolution, decision, and resistance.

I was annoyed on January 2 during and after my Monday evening yoga class. The studio was more crowded than usual, the kind of fully-booked workout that begins with everyone having to get off their mat and scooch over to make extra space for another attendee. Some of the people who also regularly attend my yoga studio made the requisite comments in the hallway afterward, about the saturation point of enrollment and all the newcomers, the New Year’s Resolvers who’d “be gone in a couple weeks.” But the crowdedness wasn’t the source of my own irritation at all.

If I’m forced to think anything about the fact that exercise classes are more crowded in January, it tends to be along the lines of :

1. Hope that maybe I won’t be the only person falling down when it’s time to execute any of the standing poses, including mountain pose, which is the one where you literally just stand there with your arms at your sides. 

2. How incredible it is that I myself—a sickly, depressive person—am well enough to be exercising in January.

Not for nothing, but even though I was something of an athlete during my youth, when I swam competitively (until sophomore year of high school, when I discovered my true life’s purpose: smoking weed behind the 7-Eleven), the consistent exercisers who lack empathy and recognition with inconsistent exercisers are not my people. Fuck those people. When self-loathing manifests as superiority, it ceases to interest me. Of all the types of bullies I cannot abide, the most rebarbative has got to be The Projector.

I digress. 

I was annoyed in yoga class because the usual instructor was absent and the substitute offered an egregious misinterpretation of the class, which is called Stretch & Surrender: Gentle Vinyasa with Long Holds. 

I show up to this class because the usual instructor, Nicole, is very good at what she does. A natural communicator. She keeps the lights down and gives detailed instructions. In Warrior II, she reminds us to tuck in our tailbone. In Warrior I with the right leg in front, she’ll say, “Point your left hip toward the front of the room.” People who are really advanced and athletic are always in attendance, but the way Nicole talks and teaches takes into account how easily a normal person like myself might get hurt, that among the devoted yogis there is someone—me—who has shown up to the hour anticipating the last ten minutes, when we all lie down and pretend to be dead.  

Best of all, Nicole says things like, “Maybe you can touch your toes today, maybe not. The yoga isn’t about what you do, it’s about how well you visualize yourself doing it. Close your eyes and picture yourself touching your toes.” 

I’m quite good at this imaginary yoga. I write novels. Visualizing myself (and others! and people who aren’t real, people who are just words on a page I wrote down for fun, like a child) is my whole bag. Novelist is as much a personality as a profession; even when I’m not working, I spend some hours nearly everyday visualizing myself doing lot of things I simply cannot do, plus many others I probably could do, but won’t! (A few recent examples of the latter, for credibility: Go to the post office and mail my mother her birthday gift, which I bought well before her birthday, which was in mid-December; apply to Yaddo; change the Brita filter; write an entire novel and publish said novel to small praise; eat some produce; throw away the produce I’d earlier pictured myself eating, as it is now inedible and stinking up the fridge; respond to even one email.)

You can imagine my dismay, therefore, when I arrived to class Monday night in the perfect mindset to sit in a dark, warm room, kind of leaning in the direction of the pose, only to learn Nicole was not there, and instead I would be instructed by a raving lunatic named—let’s say—Alexis. Alexis had the voice and demeanor of an auctioneer, and she proceeded to run Stretch & Surrender: Gentle Vinyasa with Long Holds the way I imagine a yoga class would be conducted if it were part of some elaborate hazing ritual during a sorority rush, or if yoga was something they made the prisoners do at Guantanamo Bay. She stood at the front of the room barking out each pose—she went so fast!—and, every third or fourth pose, counted down from five as quickly as she could. There were no long holds. In fact, most of the poses were so brief, it feels wrong and unfair to refer to them as holds at all. No one in class could keep up with her, and a lot of us were looking around, trying to figure out what was happening. There was no time or space for me to use my imagination to do the yoga, which is the whole reason I was there.

Skandasana, a yoga pose that is essentially a wide-legged squat over one leg, is difficult to get into and out of, especially those who aren’t very young or determined. About midway through the class, when the general mood in the room was already unhappy, Alexis shouted: “Skandasana! One, two, CHANGE, skandasana on the other side! One, two, CHANGE, OTHER SIDE…” This went on, delivered with the rapid fire pace and cadence of an intense pilates or HIIT workout, which none of us had signed up to do. A few of my classmates had retreated into child’s pose, a few held skandasana on one leg for a longer, more appropriate beat, and a few were still attempting to keep up with Alexis, either out of good sportsmanship, ignorance of what the class typically entailed, or as some undertaking of self-punishment. I didn’t do any of this. I stood in the middle of my mat, glaring, saying, “No,” each time Alexis told us to switch positions. This made the person next to me laugh, and soon several others were laughing, too, and Alexis—trying to pretend a mutiny wasn’t brewing in the back right corner of the studio, told everyone to get into downward dog, which I did, and held, as she continued to holler out poses without taking the time to tell us toward where we should point our hips. 

There was no shavasana—corpse pose—at the end, the aforementioned conclusion of class during which the lights go off and one lies on their back and lets the mind go blank. I could’ve probably overlooked the rest if it if she’d just let me play dead afterward. 

When I finally got out of there, I needed to blow off some steam, so I drove to Stop & Shop to buy ingredients for my homemade version of the Taco Bell Mexican Pizza. I recommend making your own since Taco Bell took the pizza away and then brought it back as some sort of completely bullshit marketing gimmick. It doesn’t taste as good since the reemergence. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but something bad happened.

Driving around Long Island is not a blood pressure reducing activity. Other places, a majority of drivers operate a motor vehicle with some notion of having done so before, and taking into account the well-established rules for driving on public roads, rules drivers must learn in order to become licensed to drive at all. Things like stopping the car at the approach to a sign that reads STOP, or putting on a turn signal to turn the car in a new direction or change lanes. In Long Island, driving is more like Mario Kart. In the game of driving, there are winners and losers. Everyone here seems to be doing what they need to win. People will risk significant injury to themselves and their car for victory. I have a hard time with this mentality, owing perhaps to the fact that I’ve been involved in a serious accident, or maybe just because, I don’t know, the reason I’m driving is to get somewhere, and having a horrible accident would delay me significantly, perhaps even permanently. 

Anyway. I got cut off a few times and some guy honked at me, I think because he wanted to run through the read light and, as the operator of the car stopped at the light directly in front of him, I was in his way.

I was therefore in a full-on, honey-badger defense/offense BAD MOOD when I got to Stop & Shop. Regular readers will recall the supermarket as my own personal Roman Colosseum, the place I go to fight life out, but take heart. This is a story of mindful redemption. The surprising reversal, if you will. 

In the supermarket, I found a balm, one that I forget happens each year and then am entirely thrilled to find again, like money in the pocket of an old coat: All the snack food items go on great big sale in early January. 

Mondelez International, aka Snackworks, aka the food conglomerate that produces NutterButter and Chips Ahoy! and Oreo and Nilla Wafers and Fig Newtons and Lorna Doone and Teddy Grahams and Mallomars: 2 for $6! And you didn’t have to get two packages of Oreos, my friends. Oh, no, you could buy get just one for $3 or mix and match. The sale even extended to the Fudge Covered or the Nutter Butter Wafers or the Cakesters, both of which came back this year after unjust discontinuation due to supply chain issues in 2021. (To keep up with the news of our time, I recommend this important journalistic endeavor.) Also 2 for $6: Ben and Jerry’s. Goldfish Crackers and select other Pepperidge Farm delicacies were 2 for $5 and the big bags of Lay’s Potato Chips were $1.40 off regular price.

I left Stop & Shop renewed, redeemed, cleansed of all ill. This was better than yoga. I could not afford to waste time being annoyed by aggressive exercise and worse driving. I cruised home, singing along to Bob Seger on the radio. Top of my lungs. Let a guy with the Let’s Go Brandon sticker-ed Chevy Tahoe swing out in front of me at each and every strip mall between the supermarket and my house. I didn’t care anymore. “Night Moves” is a great song. I had to belt it out now, while I still could. Soon I would not be able to sing. My mouth would be too full of snacks. 

All this is to say: I haven’t resolved to eat “better” this year. (I have more much to say about the notion of food as an indicator of moral quality and the classist, unhealthy, violent, mean-spirited neoliberal lens in front of this utterly destructive way of thinking, and how frequently I have to talk myself away from those thoughts; another topic for a future newsletter, I suppose… in the meantime I invite you to read the entire satirical novel I wrote about consumption as a morality project…) Nor have I promised myself to engage in challenging, heart-pumping workouts or go to bed at a decent hour or to take a walk in the morning or switch from coffee to tea. I hope to finish the novel I’m writing, but not enough, as it were, to resolve to do so. 

The new year itself is such an inappropriate juncture for a change. Why does the new year start in January? If the new year began at the summer solstice, and the sun shone for fifteen hours and there were no chance of a blizzard for at least another four months, I might be better motivated to smoke less weed or watch less television or stop picking my nose or floss twice a day. But in January? I’ll take Goblin Mode, thanks. I’m not going to suffer the shame of inevitably failing to keep a resolution given the limited hours I have to reasonably accomplish anything.

I realize that the above looks, from this point, a lot like one of those “I’m too smart to make a New Year’s Resolution” ugly brags, just another internet person’s Nothing Burger (or Nothing Mexican Pizza, if you prefer) of empty, shallow complaints against a harmless cultural trend. Listen. I’m not against resolutions. But I like decisions better. I’m not saying we can’t change or that we shouldn’t want to change. Nor that change is impossible, so why bother trying—that’s not true, we adapt all the time—or that there’s no use trying to change because someday you’re going to die. (The problem with nihilism is you have to agree to be bored!) 

Decisions are nice because they imply direct, immediate action. Resolutions are drawn out, and limiting as such. Also, they are expensive. I can’t justify the ten dollar green juice when just at the other side of the supermarket, they’re practically giving the snacks away. 

Even if one can remove any direct capitalist enterprise from New Year/New Me-ism, one must contend with submitting to some cycle of self-denial and austerity in a time of year when those of us in the northern hemisphere tend to be at our most vulnerable (—there’s a fair chance I’d love a New Year’s Resolution if I were Australian). This isn’t just about a contest to see how much we can hate ourselves for having bad habits, either: It’s about how deeply narcissistic self-hatred tends to be in the first place.

When I find myself most frustrated by my own bad habits—for me these are procrastination, interrupting other people in conversation, an impulsivity that results in over-commitment and committing to shit I don’t really want to do at all, and getting too drunk at parties—a lot of my fixation boils down to a desire to never feel embarrassed and to be liked by everyone—even people I dislike—always. I’d have a lot less fun—maybe no fun ever—if I really resolved to cease these behaviors. And I think I’d be even lonelier than I already am, and you’ve probably noticed: Modern adulthood is pretty lonely in and of itself, without the guilt-and-shame cycle of self-restriction so many of us spin through. 

The experts show similar contradiction. Schopenhauer advocated asceticism not as self-punishment for sins, but in service of empathy and to come to terms with mortality. Restricting ourselves from physical pleasure, in his view, allowed us to be in closer touch with the suffering of others, which in turn would lead to more equitable action and selfless regard. (This is why a person living in poverty or on the edge of poverty is more likely to give a dollar to a houseless person on the street than someone who’s wealthy, who has a lot more dollars to give away without noticing. Once you’ve personally understood economic precarity, it’s a lot harder to say you couldn’t do with a bit less on behalf of someone who has nothing, even when you yourself have almost nothing.)

As far as his own habits, though, Schopenhauer was a visionary, not a practitioner. Despite being frequently cited by vegetarians for his praise of the abstemious, his disdain for snacking, and his derision at all the indulgent food featured in Renaissance paintings, Schopenhauer himself didn’t miss any meals. He actually credited his good health in old age to his large appetite and rich, meaty dinners, along with the comfort and company of his pet poodles, whom he took almost everywhere. He liked to go to Italy and sleep with young ballerinas and actresses, where he probably caught syphilis. His clothes were from fine tailors and he bathed every morning (a sybaritic habit if there ever was one in the early 19th century), and took long, leisurely walks in the middle of every workday. He died while reading for pleasure on the settee of his study in Frankfurt at aged seventy-two (which was old as fuck in 1860). The asceticism central to Schopenhauer’s intellectual life was just that. It was more of a maybe you can reach, but it’s also chill if you just want to close your eyes and picture yourself doing it kind of thing. 

Arthur Schopenhauer and one of the little bitches he loved so much

The New Year’s Resolution that situates itself as a longterm battle against our instincts—bad habits, our gross bodies, our laziness—strikes me as paradoxically both self-flagellating and annoyingly precious. Your problem might be that you’re too hard on yourself, but you might be so hard on yourself because you think you shouldn’t have flaws or problems. To which I say: Good luck with that!

I don’t want to mislead you to thinking I have any of the more sanguine resolutions of the wellness set, either, like to be nicer to myself or keep in better touch with old friends or enrich my life with solitary, adventurous travel. First of all, you may remember that I think of life as a process, not a story. As such, I can’t just decide to be somebody else. I’m not going to bring psychoanalysis into this, at least not yet, because I’m not ready to lose that many subscribers, but trust me, if any of us could undertake a change as large as the alteration of our fundamental natures, we wouldn’t put it off until January on the premise that it would simply be too inconvenient to become a totally different person over the holidays. That’s some Eternal Sunshine shit right there, and no amount of resolve is going to change the fact that you are a middle child or an only child or a child of divorce or whatever. Sorry! 

When Schopenhauer was seventeen, his father committed suicide by jumping off a bridge into a river, and perhaps—along with his own anger management issues, anxiety and depression—the chronic loss and eventual reclamation of the will to live exists at the heart of much his writing. He was fascinated by the fact that life was always a choice, that all people living must be actively deciding to continue to do so. His mother’s letters to him were full of worry that he’d kill himself, because his letters to her were full of anguish and rumination over his loneliness and what he felt was an inability to connect to life on earth, to make peace with himself and his thoughts. He was an isolated person, a person with steady habits who nonetheless resolved to nothing in the long term. Like many an over-thinker before and since, he had some commitment issues. His death was sudden and painless. He probably wasn’t ready to go.

I think about Schopenhauer’s ideas versus his deeds—I think about many weirdos of yore this way—because there’s some comfort in contradiction. I don’t want a life of actualized productivity and achievement, or at least I don’t want to want perfection of any kind. The gap between what we believe we are and what we do is steep, for all of us, I think, and I discover so much in the dim hypocrisies between what I know and where my own inclinations take me. Look, I cooked my own fast food after yoga class. It took an hour, and I had no appetite, because I’d already eaten half a box of Pecan Sandies.

Happy New Year. I hope you all have an okay time and find your life’s own contradictions mostly interesting and somewhat useful.