New Year’s resolutions, no matter how cheesy, and hackneyed the concept is, are a good chance to reflect on things that you enjoyed, the things you didn’t and the things you want to change about yourself or your life. Having said that I have a few goals that I’d like to share.

1.) Be honest with people. No more sarcasm.

2.) Take more pictures. I’ve started a 365 project on flickr, I’ll try my best to keep it up.

3.) Gain some form of financial independence.

The photo above is me as the Roman god Janus. I felt it was appropriate since I’m reflecting on the past, and planning for the future right now. Looking back on the last three years of my life, I realize that continuing to do what I’ve been doing up until now will never get me where I want to be. I don’t think it’s true, but someone told me that the words ‘work’, and ‘worship’ share the same etymological roots. ‘Worship’, I think comes from the word ‘worth’. For the last three years I have worked for Japanese schools, both public and private, teaching English. It isn’t something that I ever planned on, but nothing else panned out. No excuses, I simply didn’t do enough. Honestly though, I love working with children. I’ve protected, my inner-child enough to where teaching them is… child’s play. I feel like I’m just playing with my friends. The problem always comes with the adults that I have to work with. Currently, I’m working for a private school now, and the owner/principal is rude, stinks, and does not bathe or brush his teeth. No one has said anything to him over the years, not even his older sister who works with him. Being surrounded by people that can’t be real with you must be draining. Surely, I’m not the only one who is noticing the lingering funk-mist in our office, or the (not a joke) trail of small dead bugs that I can’t identify around his desk and eating area. This is not appropriate. In the almost one year that I’ve worked for this school, he hasn’t once visited a class, communicated with the hundred or so children that attend his school, or asked how my lessons are going or about the progress of my students. In fact, he sits down in the office fiddling with his iPad, and when he finds time he’ll reprimand a coworker for some minor offence. He is the school’s sole madogiwazoku member.

The dilemma I face is whether or not, I can walk into a funk-mist office with tiny dead bugs scattered about and still respect myself, do I need to have things like self-respect and pride? Really, within this small dilemma lies a much greater one. Do I continue to spend my most precious gift (time) worshiping others, and helping them succeed for (as Robert Anton Wilson would put it) “survival tickets”, or do I pursue the things I would really like to pursue with my time. Anyone who is asked this question will obviously choose the latter, but this planet and the lives of everything on it revolve around the idea of money and this is a worship that is almost impossible to escape. This is probably too out there for a photography blog.