The year 2003 is now in the past. 2004 has begun.

Moments ago, I toasted with friends gathered here in the Temple of Castor and Pollux, and sipped a bottle of Bawls, courtesy of Jaeger. We drank and pondered the meaning of celebrating the new year.

The earlier portion of the evening leading up to the new year was spent at the house of Jaeger's parents, eating rustic pizza, chocolate fondoo (I know that's sic, but I don't feel like looking it up), putting together a puzzle, and being coerced into playing a strange game involving made up vs real definitions of words.

Now, each of us -- Yathor, Jaeger, Kiesa, Humblik, and myself -- have each gone into our own silent worlds, everyone seeming to be tapping frantically away at their keyboards (except Kiesa, who appears to be reading a book). We discussed all posting content simultaniously to our websites for the new year. Looking briefly over his shoulder, that appears to be what Jaeger is also doing at the console next to me, but I can't be sure about the others.

I look back at the past, and wonder about the future. A line from B5 season 2, which I'm sure I will slaughter, seems vaguely appropriate to quote. It was made by the Centauri Emperor, shortly before he was killed. "The past tempts us, the present confuses us, and the future frightens us." (Thank you google.)

Thinking back over the past year, especially with regard my personal life, I cannot say I am happy with the way my life has gone, or where it appears to be going. It has been a time of much blundering, frustration, feeling helpless, and vain searching for some glimmer of hope that the future will get better. (And I like to think of myself as an optimisty, or at least try to be. Hah!)

That said, there have also been some highlights. Thinking over the past 12 months, I remember the most prominent ones occurring while in the presence of the group of people with whom I am currently surrounded. The fests.

Also, I think of my family. My brother, who I see less often than in times past. I have also come to realize that taste-wise, my brother and I seem to have grown apart quite a lot over the past few years. Though there are some things we enjoy together, such as a good pot of spicey dip, he's largely into different music, different movies, different tv shows, and different activities than I. Still, I enjoy when he comes to visit, and as family, we know each other in a way beyond what normal friends would.

My parents. It's odd. Though I more or less live both with them again (having gotten out on my own for an altogether too short and temporary a period), emotionally, I now feel like I am farther away from them than ever. Is that wierd to say? Most of what matters in my life now is largely hidden from them, either through active concealment on my part, or benign lack of attention on theirs.

I want to burst out of this shell that contains me. I want to take on the world in all its callous indifference, and make it heed my will. I want to force its hand. If the universe wants to damn me, let it be with a ball of fire, rather than a little cage in the corner, where I sit and eat my pudding, go to sleep, and wonder if I'll ever see the sun again tomorrow.

Yet the only will I seem able to muster has so far been able to get me little farther than rattling at the bars of the door.

A year ago, more or less, I wrote up a set of resolutions. I remember some of them. Enough to know that few, if any, have actually been carried out. I could sit and pontificate about how dumb it was to make them in the first place, seeing that factors largely out of my control have hindered me. That debate is tired, old, and all used up.

Some things are within my control. Some are not. Inasmuch as keeping the quickly forgotten resolutions I wrote down last year, I did a damn poor job of taking advantage of the parts that were within my control. That's not to berate myself; it's an honest judgement of what happened. Seeing that I almost never mentioned, and seldom thought about the resolutions (at least as they were written) after the day they were written, I don't think I really meant them. They were more of a desperate attempt to motivate myself into action than a genuine assertion of direction.

So now, I am naturally hesitant to declare out of the blue, simply because it is January 1 again, that "Over the coming months, I will do this, this, and this."

At the same time, I would like to take this opportunity, along with that presented at every moment so long as there is life, to set a direction for myself, and proceed to follow the path that is best for my life.

The real trick is figuring out what that path is, and where it leads. In that, I am sad to say I am no closer to an answer than I was a year ago, 2 years ago, or 5 years ago. In fact, I may be farther from knowing than I was at various instances in the past.

That, in and of itself, is perhaps what troubles me most. If I knew what it was I was really shooting for, I would be a hell of a lot closer to hitting the target. Or at least there would be a chance.

Right now, I'm feeling an instinctual urge to slap on my headphones, play a good inspiring song, and inflict the lyrics upon this space. Something like Queensryche's Take Hold of the Flame, or Tori's Take to the Sky, or ... something.

But that would not only be a cheesy and repetitive way to close this off with a nice warm feeling for me, while most readers' eyes probably glaze over; it would also lack any real substantive conclusion. A stand-in for narrative closure.

There will be plenty of time to listen to my music later. Right now, I'm going to keep digging this hole. Who knows? Maybe if I stick at it long enough, I'll get beyond the point of having a pit too deep for me to climb out of, and find myself in China.

No matter.

I may feel like I'm stuck in terms of my life, but I can compensate by writing an endless and ultimately incomprehensible series of observations, metaphors, witty phrases, analyses about the state of various facets of my life and the world in general, and become a full fledged factory of words and ideas as proof that I am not as insignificant as my ego wants me to believe.

Then I will have purpose. Then I will be useful. Then my life, at least for this brief flash of an instant, will be satisfying.

Jaeger has just initiated playing of U2's New Year's Day over the house sound system. Fitting.

Damn. I did not mean to jump off into such a negative streak, as I seem to have done over the past batch of paragraphs. (And now, as I write about how annoying it was to have a negative streak, I find myself in a meta-negative mode, writing negatively about the negativity. Is that a double negative? No, it isn't not.)

I guess the angst was there sitting at the brink, waiting to be released somewhere. And when one hits the mode of writing with abandon, no forethought as to what will be said, and no suppression of what comes out, whatever is comes out.

That sort of unbridled venting in a public online venue has occassionally gotten me into trouble in times past. But that is not the only reason I inceasingly avoid it. I also don't like to think of myself as being a negative person. So, to what degree as one can, I hide the negativity from myself. Logically, I know that this sort of self-deception really only makes things worse. Still, without even trying, I engage in it.

Ok, the U2 song on the speakers ended a few minutes ago, and now everything is silent again, except the clicking of keyboards. Jaeger has finished his entry, and is sitting on the couch with Kiesa.

Now I'm going to hit the headphone music, but I'll still spare the rest of the world the lyrics. If you really want to know what it says, google is your friend. I finally decided on Pure Drama, The Time You've Spent. (On second thought, since that ended up being a slightly more obscure artist, lyrics might be a little harder to find. But I'm sure they're out there somewhere.)

Well... Where from here?

I struggle to think of something insightful to say. But I realize that right now, there is nothing more I can follow with. I simply don't know.

I could summarize some events from the past few days, but that really seems like it would fit better in another entry.

I don't know where my life is going. If I am a broken machine, I don't know how to fix myself. (Silly religious doctrines force fed into me during childhood about "giving your life over to Jesus, and let God into your heart" as the solution comes to mind. Yet, short of a total lobotomy, I know that is not my path.)

So realistically, I guess in all likelihood, I'll keep muddling around, keep making stupid mistakes, either though action or inaction, and keep writing about them on the web.

I find myself out of steam. Yet suddenly, after writing that last paragraph, the future doesn't seem so bad after all. (It also doesn't hurt that somebody across the table from me just complimented me on something I wrote earlier.)

Now, back to festing. Happy 2004.