A Prologemena To Any Future Awesome.

or, "Why This Blog Exists".

2008 has been a terrible year for me. How terrible? I will spare you the full details, but to give an example: I went to lunch with my producer a few weeks ago, and enumerated at great length a list of things that went wrong. Walking back, I knew I forgot something.

A couple days later, I remembered: oh yeah, this was the year my laptop was stolen, complete with my only copy of the first 23 pages of my script-in-progress.

And then, two weeks later: oh yeah, I also broke my rib this year.

In a normal year, those would be, if not the worst things that happened, at least present in the mind when the topic came up.

For most of the people I know, 2008 has been similar. Of course, things like global economic crises will do this to people, but it goes beyond that - horrible accidents, cancer, death. This year left me and many I know physically and psychologically battered, bruised, and wiped out. It is no way to live.

And so, this year, something must change.

I gave this a lot of thought, and two weeks ago, lying in bed, a phrase rolled into my head, took root, and announced itself quietly, insistently, clearly:

The Year Of The Awesome.

What that means, and how it pans out, will be an evolving process over 2009. But for right now, it means that in any situation, the best decision I can make is the one that maximizes overall awesomeness.

As an aside for people who like to geek out about this: I am taking a utilitarian approach here. For instance, in the short term, watching awesome movies with friends til 4 AM on a Friday night may seem more awesome than staying in on that same Friday night and writing. But if by writing it means a very awesome project comes to fruition, then staying in and writing is, in fact, the more awesome choice.

There are many questions that you may have: what, exactly, defines awesome? Can reasonable people disagree on what is awesome? How can I be sure I'm making the most awesome choice at a given time? How can I hope to live awesomely in a less-than-awesome world?

I don't know the answers yet. But I hope you join me as I try to find out.