My two New Year's resolutions

Time again to embrace the radical annual challenge of overcoming "obstacles" that are really just reflections of my automatic tendencies

In 2024, I will go for at least one run every day I feel strongly motivated to move around; once I start, I will continue moving my legs until I simply stop. When the air is too cold or steamy, or the skies too dreary or overly ablaze with piercing sunshine, that is my body telling me to rest and recoup. I will remember that the path toward becoming a stronger runner and a better public advocate for holistic, evidence-based wellness is never, ever leaving my innate comfort zone—in running, in politically themed discussions, and most of all everywhere online—while constantly convincing myself of my own courage, curiosity, and resistance to disinformation.

— The 2023 Editors of Everything

I sometimes wonder what the average professional MMA fighter would think of the advice in a typical “How to Reignite Your Training Fire”-class article in any of today’s ad-supported running publications.

The best way to score a W in a New Year’s resolution is to choose the goal yourself. The best way to rack up a lopsided L is to allow your closest unconditionally honest friend to select the behavioral modification for you. This is why the outsourcing of resolutions is virtually nonexistent in the U.S. New Year’s sector.

On less snarky note, one thing that has helped me since the onset of the mass-propaganda, intentional-confusion era is following pundits who not only debunk sham narratives and expose corruption, but purposefully pursue conversations with past or current political adversaries and especially pan-censored figures.

There is silver lining in the undisguised deployment of online censorship of problematic babbleheads by state-affiliated actors: If someone has been censored or marginalized, you can automatically be extremely confident in the problematic character’s veracity, at least in certain areas. People are not being deplatformed for being wrong in their dissent, a conclusion rendered unassailable by both world history and basic logic. Very much the opposite, always.

One journalist who consistently hosts guests with radically different viewpoints on volatile issues is Glenn Greenwald. Throughout the past few geopolitically ignominious months, Greenwald has featured both Ziopathic and anti-genocide pundits on his Rumble show System Update, all while knowing that his own strident anti-war stance is costing him subscribers and that most of the ones who haven't bailed are watching either exactly half or exactly none of the interviews he dedicates to the subject of Israel-Gaza.

Though less than twelve hours old, the video below is perhaps the best extant example of the kind of exchange I watch nowadays not just to gain information, but to evaluate—and in most cases ultimately mitigate or discard—residual biases against large-scale public pariahs.

Despite being a volubly sardonic observer by inclination—i.e., a wiseass—Jimmy Dore is consistently fearless with guests he disagrees with no matter their stature. But better than that, his eagerness to admit to and publicly exhibit concordance with figures he once loathed demonstrates a critical principle every citizen must accept: The problem isn't people of a different color, religion, sexual orientation, or stance on abortion or gun-ownership rights. It's the small people desperately trying to keep the rest of us from continuing to Do Our Own Research—always and especially when publicizing the fruits of these investigations produces immediate and furious pushback from the investigated parties.

Happy 2024, East Coast Americans. I plan to meet a friend for an 11:00 run to see if anyone my septuagenarian-heavy neighborhood is throwing any flamboyant ragers. I’m sure no one will be driving drunk because they had a reminder on one of the local radio stations to knock that shit off.