First, consider the lead-up to this tournament.  Think about the endless mockery of FIFA’s choice, the stream of articles on how South Africa does not have the ability or infrastructure to host an event of this scale.  And most recently, the ridiculous reports in the British press of machete wars and who knows what else.  We just sucked it up, and quietly went about our preparations.

And now, here we are, in some of the most beautiful stadiums the world has ever seen, at a tournament that is running smoothly.  Reporters on the ground are talking about the “sustained display of pure joy” by South Africans in hosting and enjoying this event.  There are the constant great reviews of our hospitality and friendliness.  So instead of fighting about inefficiency or bad logistics at matches, we’re fighting about vuvuzelas?

Ok, we’re fighting about vuvuzelas.  So come, let us reason together.

This whole debate eventually boils down to one simple question: What responsibility does a host nation of an event have towards foreign visitors to the event? That really is it.  If you look at the arguments on both sides, that is what it comes down to.

• Vuvuzela supporters defend its usage by saying that it’s part of an African World Cup experience, that you can’t make us change our ways just because you’re bothered by it.
• Vuvuzela haters say it is annoying, distracting, and when it comes down to it, rude to impose it on them.  They’re basically saying:  “Do this at your own matches, but don’t bring it to the World Cup.”

So what is our responsibility to visitors?  Three things:

• Keep them safe
• Show them a great time
• Give them an African experience

It’s that last one that’s the crux of the matter.  Why travel all the way to South Africa just to have a soccer tournament that looks like it could be in America or Europe?  Why would you want to be in the country for the soccer, but lose out on all the other authentic, local experiences we have to offer?  And why would we want you to miss out on everything that makes us who we are?  Isn’t an important part of hospitality making you one of us, instead of viewing you as an outsider and walking on egg shells around you?  And by the way, FIFA president Joe Blatter agrees:

I understand that the sound is annoying to some.  For us, we can’t imagine it any other way.  Yes, we need to make you feel welcome here.  And we really want you to have a fantastic time.  But we also want you to experience what it means to live in Africa.  So instead of complaining about the vuvuzela, pick one up at your friendly street corner vendor, and blow it.  All the time.  Go sit in a coffee shop and read the local paper.  Get out of Sandton and go have a beer in Soweto.  Rent a car and get out of town into the unimaginable beauty that awaits you.  You’ll see why we love our country so much.

And to those who are watching the games on mute on their TVs and complaining from afar — you really are missing out.  That constant droning symbolizes the exhilaration, stress, and release that is at the heart of what makes soccer such a great game.  Come on, give it another shot, and try to live it with us, not just watch it.

So, listen.  We’re not being rude.  We’re inviting you to come in and make yourself at home.  Please don’t be rude by refusing the invitation.

:============<()   Save the vuvuzela!

I told this story to a friend at work today, and he sent me this quote in response (my emphasis added):

Another important element of addiction is ritual. Something as simple as eliminating the rituals that accompany the addiction can be enough to cause the addiction to lose appeal. Powerful aspects of the addiction are obtained from the ritual itself, such that without it, the behavior or substance no longer is accompanied by euphoria. Heroin is a good example. The ritual of injecting heroin and the lifestyle involved in the pursuit and use of the drug is a part of the addiction. Taking away these components, as is done in methadone clinics, often reforms addicts on these bases alone.

If I arrived too late to be there for the preparation of the coffee, would it have tasted differently?  Would vinyl LP’s sound as good as they do if there wasn’t so much work involved in maintaining and playing them?  Are we really this predictable, this easy to manipulate, that the lead-up to an event can have such a big impact on the enjoyment of it?

Yes, yes we are.

It has now been two weeks since we arrived back in Cape Town after an 8 year stint living abroad, and I am still hesitant to write this post.  I keep thinking that I need to give it more time, that my unconditional euphoria about being back has to be some kind of temporary adrenalin rush.  That the other shoe will drop and suddenly I’ll be faced with a strange reality, left only with thoughts of “What have we done!?”  And maybe that will still happen.  But right now, as I sit on our balcony in Sea Point overlooking the Promenade and the vast blue ocean, I’m tempted to give up the fight and embrace what my wife told me over lunch today… What took us so long to move back?

It’s hard to explain, but my spirit lifted the minute we landed in Cape Town (after a grueling 2-day journey with our 6-month old, but that’s a story for a different blog post).  After recuperating at my parents’ house in Stellenbosch for a few days, we moved into our flat in Sea Point a week ago, and we just can’t believe how lucky we are to live here in this amazing place.

The beauty in this area of the world is simply stunning.  This weekend I got up and went for a run along the ocean as the foghorns were working overtime, and 100s of runners were enjoying the early morning ocean-quiet with me.  We spent the day at Camps Bay and Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, and we were left only with thoughts of how blessed we are to have all of this right at our doorstep.

There is chaos here, but it doesn’t feel like chaos, it just feels like life.  When we walk around in downtown Sea Point I sense an energy and a vibrancy that is almost tangible.  As I watch and talk to people, as we experience the diversity of cultures and emotions all around us, I can’t help but fall in love with Africa all over again.  And my wife, who is American, feels exactly the same way.

There are those who tell me we’re crazy for moving back, but the love-hate relationship South Africans have with their country is also part of what draws me to this place — we don’t shy away from the bad stuff, and we don’t shut up about our opinions.

Yes, there are many problems in South Africa.  Serious, serious problems.  And I am not oblivious to it — I remain vigilant and always mindful of the safety of my family, and I’d be lying if I said this weekend’s killing of Eugene Terre’blanche doesn’t make me nervous.  But I see in this country a potential that is so different and unique to anything I’ve experienced living in Australia and America.

Let me put it this way.  When I was in high school, rugby was everything.  The problem is that our school really sucked at it.  We weren’t even allowed to play in the same league as our main rivals in town (Paul Roos Gymnasium), because the embarrassment would just be too devastating and there were fears we would grow up weak and bruised for life.  But the words our coach spoke to us one afternoon after practice have stuck with me ever since:

He told us, yes, we could attend Paul Roos and be part of a great rugby school, a school that has accomplished everything there is to accomplish, a school at the top of the rankings.  Or we could stay here, at Stellenbosch High, and help build something from the ground up.  Now, sure, he was just trying to make us feel better.  But the words rang true.

Living in America was wonderful — I love the country and its people, and I am amazed at how smoothly everything works, and how easy it is to live there.  But here’s the thing: America doesn’t need me.  I can’t really contribute much there.  There are 1,000′s of people there who have the exact same skillset I do.

But here, in Cape Town, in my country, I can become part of something.  The Silicon Cape initiative is getting off the ground.  The user experience community is starting to thrive.  I can be a part of that — and here’s the bonus: I can do it in a place that is brimming with hope and immeasurable beauty.  How can I pass that chance up?

During our last week in America, I reminded my wife at some point that we are taking a big risk by moving here.  The job pool is smaller, there are countless political challenges.  You know what she told me?  ”A safe life is a boring life.”  And she was right (as usual).

So we take this risk and we embrace it with both arms.  So far we are loving every minute of it.  Hard times will come, but we are here, now, and this is our home.  Here, in Africa, we plant ourselves.

Trust and start walking. We are not alone in the dark, our path will unfold as we move. R.L.Stevenson once said: “I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” If you can’t move in the physical world, move in your imagination, but MOVE.

A lovely sentiment, but as someone who is preparing to move countries in less than two weeks, the reality is quite different.  A recent New York Times article entitled The Psychology of Moving summed it up pretty well:

Whether one moves frequently or almost never, moving is an intensely emotional experience. The underlying psychological issues involved in real estate decisions are of great interest to therapists and psychologists, because housing and moving are filled with symbolism, the hope for new beginnings, crushing disappointments, loss, anxiety and fear.

“Panic can really set in around your home and your apartment,” said Ronnie Greenberg, a Manhattan psychoanalyst. “It’s a matrix of safety, so moving is incredibly stressful and people don’t realize it — they mainly talk about the packing and the external part of moving.”

That’s certainly not as sexy as the first statement, but it is most certainly closer to the truth (except for the part about not realizing how stressful it is.  I have pretty good grasp of how stressed I am right now!).

To go a little further (and definitely more eloquently) into the realities of moving, I want to go back to a great book everyone should read, The Art of Travel.  Alain De Botton says the following:

If our lives are dominated by a search for happiness, then perhaps few activities reveal as much about the dynamics of this quest—in all its ardour and paradoxes—than our travels. They express, however inarticulately, an understanding of what life might be about, outside of the constraints of work and of the struggle for survival.

Yet rarely are they considered to present philosophical problems—that is, issues requiring thought beyond the practical. We are inundated with advice on where to travel to, but we hear little of why and how we should go, even though the art of travel seems naturally to sustain a number of questions neither so simple nor so trivial, and whose study might in modest ways contribute to an understanding of what the Greek philosophers beautifully termed eudaimonia, or ‘human flourishing’.

At the heart of what makes moving such a complex emotional and physical endeavor is what Alain calls “the relationship between the anticipation of travel and its reality.”   It is never what you think it’s going to be, and that results in a lot of stress and mixed emotions.

The problem is that we can never fully anticipate all the mundane details involved in moving.  So we focus on the outcome — the first breakfast in your new home, the first family walk.  But oh, how the reality of the journey hurts.  One more quote from The Art of Travel that sums this up much better than I can:

If we are inclined to forget how much there is in the world besides that which we anticipate, then works of art are perhaps a little to blame, for in them we find at work the same process of simplification or selection as in the imagination. Artistic accounts involve severe abbreviations of what reality will force upon us.

A travel book may tell us, for example, that the narrator journeyed through the afternoon to reach the hill town of X and after a night in its medieval monastery awoke to a misty dawn. But we never simply ‘journey through an afternoon’. We sit in a train. Lunch digests awkwardly within us. The seat cloth is grey. We look out the window at a field. We look back inside. A drum of anxieties revolves in our consciousness. We notice a luggage label affixed to a suitcase in a rack above the seats opposite. We tap a finger on the window ledge. A broken nail on an index finger catches a thread. It starts to rain. A drop wends a muddy path down the dust-coated window. We wonder where our ticket might be. We look back out at the field. It continues to rain. At last the train starts to move. It passes an iron bridge, after which it inexplicably stops. A fly lands on the window.

And still we may have reached the end only of the first minute of a comprehensive account of the events lurking within the deceptive sentence ‘He journeyed through the afternoon’.

So, there’s that.  But I guess the point is that, somehow, you get through it.  You journey through the afternoon, and you get where you need to be.  And after the dust settles you are left with the sense of accomplishment that comes from beating down a challenge — and a new beginning to make.

So even though I know the reality of getting there is going to be pretty bad, I need to keep my eyes on that first breakfast in Cape Town.  And that, I guess, is the art of moving.

But I finally read it, and it gave me goosebumps.  So for anyone out there who have also not read it, here it is…

We, the people of South Africa,
Recognise the injustices of our past;
Honour those who suffered for justice and freedom in our land;
Respect those who have worked to build and develop our country; and
Believe that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity.
We therefore, through our freely elected representatives, adopt this Constitution as the supreme law of the Republic so as to:

• Heal the divisions of the past and establish a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights;
• Lay the foundations for a democratic and open society in which government is based on the will of the people and every citizen is equally protected by law;
• Improve the quality of life of all citizens and free the potential of each person; and
• Build a united and democratic South Africa able to take its rightful place as a sovereign state in the family of nations.

May God protect our people.
Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika. Morena boloka setjhaba sa heso.
God seën Suid-Afrika. God bless South Africa.
Mudzimu fhatutshedza Afurika. Hosi katekisa Afrika.

I’m proud to be from a country where we can openly and honestly acknowledge the mistakes of our past, so that we don’t repeat them in the future.

Since our family is moving back to Cape Town in March after 6 years in America, I read the article with great interest.  And as far as rants go, this is a pretty good one.  This guy isn’t holding anything back.  You can read the post here if you’re so inclined.

Now, towards the end of the post, he wrote this piece of advice to people like us who are planning to come back:

If you are overseas, and Africa is in your bones, and you’re feeling duped by SA’s advertising that it’s all getting better (yes, Homecoming Revolution, I am talking about YOU) then don’t believe the hype. If you are white, you are unemployable, no matter how many skills or how much experience you have. Unless you are coming to participate in greed culture, and are willing to risk everything you have saved overseas (yes, overseas we have disposable income – we CAN save), then don’t be tempted by summers and blue skies. Get a UV light to combat the winter depression, but think very carefully before putting South Africa back on your radar.

So let me just address a couple of points in that paragraph straight up:

• Homecoming Revolution has been extremely helpful to me in our preparations for returning home.  Their website has great resources, their staff have always been responsive and friendly, and they helped me connect with the right people when I had questions.  They also didn’t push FNB’s banking services on me — when they heard I already have an ABSA account, they didn’t pursue the matter any further (Homecoming Revolution is sponsored by FNB).
• I am white, and therefore unemployable according to the author.  And even though I understand hyperbole and assume that’s what he was going for, I do want to point out that I am returning to a great job that I am extremely excited about.
• “Greed culture”?  As opposed to the UK and the US where everyone is sitting around singing Kumbaya and figuring out how they can give their money away to other people?  No my friend, South Africa is no more nor less greedy than any other nation in the world.
• Listen, there’s a lot to be said for those summers and blue skies.  For example:

So anyway, I don’t want to make this a long post because I have coffee brewing and I don’t want it to get cold.  But let me just say this.  The author wants me to cancel our tickets and not make the same mistake he made.  And I am not denying that he’s had a bad experience.  But his beef seems mostly with Homecoming Revolution (who’s been great to me) and FNB (not my bank).

So I’m just going to go ahead and ignore his advice.  Partly because our tickets are booked and I already sold my Xbox.  But mostly because I know three very important things:

1. No country is perfect
2. With the right attitude and a little bit of help from your friends you can make it anywhere
3. South Africa is my home

See you in March, Cape Town!

I think we love American Idol because it is such a complete window into the full spectrum of human nature. In the confines of an hour on TV we see an exaggerated version of every type of person we might ever encounter in our daily lives.  We see the ones we hate, the ones we love, the ones we feel sorry for, and the ones we want to be.  In essence, we see people in various combinations of different levels of ability and arrogance.  And that’s why I think there are four types of people in this world.

Let me first say that I am just as appalled as you are that I fell for the old “there are X types of people…” trick.  I’m reminded of the old joke: There are two types of people in this world – those who believe there are two types of people in this world, and those who don’t.  I’m squarely in the don’t column on that one.  But hang with me for a bit please – I’m reasonably certain that this will make sense to you in the end.

So here we go.  4 types of people, based on their ability level (low or high) and their level of arrogance about their abilities (low or high):

Actually, I think we all spend some time in each of these four quadrants as we go through life.  Sometimes we live in all four quadrants in a single day.  It is somewhat inevitable.  But we should strive to spend more time in some quadrants than others.  I’m getting ahead of myself, though.  Let’s go through each of these in turn…

1. The Realist (low ability, low arrogance)

This is the guy who strolls onto the American Idol platform, squeaks out a barely audible rendition of Unchained Melody, and immediately hangs his head in shame.  He wanted to give it his best shot, but he knows he’s in over his head, so faced with the blank stares from the judges, he just turns around quietly and leaves.

It’s sad to see, but we’ve all acted this way.  We’re inspired by something or someone so we try to do something new, only to realize that, yeah, maybe surfing in the Mavericks surf contest after watching “Surf’s Up” wasn’t such a good idea after all. 

Once, in high school, I decided I would be a good DJ so I put me hand up to be the DJ at one of our school parties.  I was really bad at it.  And walking around with a perpetual wedgie for a week also really gives you some additional perspective on your talents.  But there was good in that.  It showed me I should probably pursue other things.

I think we should spend as little time as possible in this quadrant.  Stay away from the things you’re not good at (unless there is a real chance you have the talent to become good at it with enough work).

2. The Obnoxious Wannabe (low ability, high arrogance)

These are the cringe-inducing American Idol auditions that we can’t watch, but simply have to.  The girl who comes in wearing an elaborate costume, going on about how all her friends tell her she’s the next Kelly Clarkson.  And then she opens her mouth and you start to question the existence of intelligent life on earth.  Because they couldn’t possibly be any worse at singing.  These auditions usually end pretty badly.  Some even end with an arrest, as in this example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfbWAmwaK44

The thing is, we all dwell in this quadrant sometimes.  Maybe more than me might care to admit.  On American Idol our response is, “don’t these people know how bad they are?”  But then we go out and pretend like our opinion is the only one that matters.  At work, we’re always right, and we refuse to admit that someone else’s ideas might be valid.  This is a very dangerous quadrant to spend time in.  It’s an easy thing to spot in others, but we’re so often blind to it in ourselves.  American Idol inspired me to dial up my internal Wannabe Radar a little so that I can get better at stepping out as soon as I venture into this area.

3. The Rock Star (high ability, high arrogance)

These auditions make you so jealous and so happy, both at the same time.  You know the ones.  The girl who walks in with a cocky swagger and belts out a Celine Dion song like it’s nobody’s business.  She hits it spot on, she knows it, and she’s not shy about it.  Think of bands like Coldplay and U2.  Think of musicians like John Mayer.  Arrogant as the day is long, but these guys simply wouldn’t be where they are today without being both good and cocky.  That’s sometimes what it takes.

In life, this can be a very effective way to get ahead, but it can also backfire fairly quickly.  Those who really use this to their advantage learn to disguise the fact that they believe they’re the only expert to ever exist on a particular subject matter (let’s call them Modified Rock Stars).

This is the celebrity quadrant, and I think in the back of our minds we all want to spend our time here (Balloon Boy, anyone?).  But here’s the thing.  I think spending too much time in this quadrant just makes you tired, and doesn’t bring you any closer to happiness. Which brings us to…

4. The Game-Changer (high ability, low arrogance)

Some American Idol auditions make you cry.  Go on, admit it.  These auditions are usually accompanied by a life story that includes overcoming a difficult event, like sickness or a death in the family.  These are people who have been beaten down by life, learned from it, and got up.  They show up at the audition with a sincere appreciation for the opportunity.  They can sing, but they have also experienced enough disappointment in their lives to know that nothing is guaranteed.

But man, can they sing.

You know the ones I’m talking about.

I call them Game-Changers, because they have a life-changing impact on the way you view the world (even if it’s in a small way), and they stay with you long after you get in contact with them.  You think about the audition when you wake up the next day.  You remember the words of a high school teacher that meant a lot to you.  You follow the advice of a work mentor who never played the corporate game well, but always seemed to be content and fulfilled in their jobs.

I don’t spend nearly enough time in this quadrant, and frankly, I want to get out of the other quadrants and into this one as often as possible.  Because this is the quadrant where you operate in the realm of your natural talents, and you have a real opportunity to impact other people in a positive way.

This is different from the Modified Rock Star (see description above) because the motivation is different.  Modified Rock Stars may appear humble, but they are still only out for themselves.  The Game-Changer’s motivation is to truly and honestly contribute to their communities (professional as well as personal), and leave those places better off.  They are aware of their talents and what they’re good at (and come on, we all have something we’re good at).  But they see this as a gift to be shared, not an accomplishment to lord over others.

This is where I want to spend my time.

How about you?  What is your “Game-Changer” talent?

And now you’ll have to excuse me, I have to go look for mine…

Here are a few options to help with the Haiti relief efforts:

• If you’re in the US, one of the easiest ways to donate is through text messaging.  Just text “HAITI” to “90999″ to donate $10 to the Red Cross. The amount will be added to your cell phone bill, and it goes straight to the Red Cross — your cell phone company doesn’t get any of that.  You can also donate on their website.
• Donate to Doctors Without Borders to provide much needed medical supplies and relief.
• Donate to Partners in Health – another option to provide medical supplies and relief.
• Another good option is Global Giving – they have tons of ways to donate on their Haiti Relief page.

Remember that every little bit helps. Like Mother Teresa said: If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.

Now, I had never read this book, so I was as enthralled as she was right from the start.  I mean, this is solid story-telling.  Clocking in at only 225 words, the book manages to introduce its main character, help you identify with him, take him through an enormous crisis, and resolve it beautifully into a happy ending.  I don’t want to spoil the ending, but let’s just say our hero has quite the journey in the space of one week.

I think my daughter liked the pictures and forget about it as soon as we were done, but the story stuck with me for a long time.  As I was lying awake thinking about it, several questions started to materialize in my mind, and I might go crazy unless I get them out.  So here goes — Part 1 of what will hopefully be an ongoing series about children’s books.  First, let’s look at the storyline.

The logic and science of The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Ok, so we have a caterpillar as our main character, and he is hungry.  Nothing wrong with that.  The book doesn’t tell us what he’s been eating up to that point, but we know that caterpillars are mostly phytophagous in food habit — meaning they’re herbivores and therefore eat plants.  So his diet over the first few days of the story raises some warning flags that, frankly, his friends should have picked up on.  Apples, pears, plums, strawberries — all good, and certainly a healthy diet, but those are fruit, not plants.  This dude’s got some serious issues.

But then things get nasty.  On Friday he eats five whole oranges?  Hold up there, fellow.  Have you seen how small you are?  At their biggest, caterpillars can get up to three inches long.  You stuff five oranges into such a small body and things are going to get weird pretty quickly. I guess it’s possible though, considering that caterpillars have been called “eating machines”, and eat pretty much all the time.  According to Wikipedia:

Most species shed their skin four or five times as their bodies grow, and they eventually pupate into an adult form.  Caterpillars grow very quickly – for example, a tobacco hornworm will increase its weight ten-thousand-fold in less than twenty days. An adaptation that enables them to eat so much is a mechanism in a specialized midgut that quickly transports ions to the lumen (midgut cavity), to keep the potassium level higher in the midgut cavity than in the blood.

So let’s say our friend survives the ordeal of the five oranges.  On Saturday, however, everything falls apart in the little guy’s world.  He eats chocolate cake, ice cream, a pickle, swiss cheese, salami, a lollipop, a cherry pie, a single sausage, a cupcake and a whole slice of watermelon.  Yes, some species of caterpillar have been known to be predators and even show cannibalistic tendencies, but this is just ridiculous.  There’s no way he could survive this binge.  Something must have set him off — but I guess that is the mystery of the story?

Whatever intervention happened between Saturday and Sunday, it must have worked.  Our friend the caterpillar goes on a serious diet and eats one single leaf — which is what he should have done in the first place — and this cures him of the gigantic stomachache he must have had from the previous week.  It is highly unlikely that (1) a single leaf could cure the caterpillar of his problems, and (2) that he would only eat one leaf that day.  I don’t think they lack the mental fortitude to stop eating.

But, let’s leave it at that.  Eventually the caterpillar turns into a butterfly, and the story has a happy ending.  Despite its science being very confusing, I must say that as a science fiction novel, this story really connected with me in the end when everything finally worked out.  So what can we learn from The Very Hungry Caterpillar?

The moral of the story is…

I think this story teaches us several life lessons:

• Don’t try to be someone you’re not.  The caterpillar clearly wasn’t happy with who he was — a herbivore.  He had to go out and experiment with all kinds of different foods, and in the end it nearly killed him.  He should have just been himself.
• You need friends who care about you.  Where was the caterpillar’s friends?  Was no one there to hold him accountable when he went off the deep end?  He needed a mentor, someone to share his troubles with.
• Overindulging is never an answer.  This story doesn’t have a lot of words in it, but it goes out of its way to explain that the caterpillar had a very bad stomachache after he snapped.  This is a universal truth — if you try to drown your sorrows by overindulging in things that help you escape reality, your tummy will most certainly ache the next morning, and your troubles will still be there.
• When things go wrong, return to what you know.  After hitting rock bottom on Saturday night, the caterpillar woke up on Sunday and realized that he needs to stop running away from himself.  He went back to his roots, ate a leaf, and became a butterfly.  That’s something all of us should remember when times are tough.  Take comfort in what you know, and have hope that maybe one day we’ll all transform into butterflies.

So even though I think we can learn a lot from this story, the science still bothers me.  I’d appreciate it if any of you can shed some light on what affliction might have befallen our caterpillar.

This post is part of the Fatherhood Friday series on Dad-Blogs.  Head over there to read some of the other Fatherhood Friday posts!

It’s been a long December / And there’s reason to believe / That maybe this year will be better than the last

What is it about the turn of the year that fills us with so much hope, and drives us to make all sorts of resolutions about how much better we’ll be in the coming year?  The history of New Year’s Resolutions is quite interesting and goes all the way back to 153 B.C. when Janus, a mythical roman god, was placed at the head of the calendar:

The Romans named the first month of the year after Janus, the god of beginnings and the guardian of doors and entrances. He was always depicted with two faces, one on the front of his head and one on the back. Thus he could look backward and forward at the same time. At midnight on December 31, the Romans imagined Janus looking back at the old year and forward to the new.

Janus became the ancient symbol for resolutions and many Romans looked for forgiveness from their enemies and also exchanged gifts before the beginning of each year.

[Source: The History of New Year's Resolutions]

So in keeping with that tradition, I’ll keep looking backward until midnight tonight, and then turn around to look at new beginnings.  It’s going to be a gigantic year for us with our move back to South Africa, our daughter’s first birthday, etc.  But in the end, my resolution is pretty simple:

Connect to the Internet less, with people more.

And it looks like I’m not the only one.  See my earlier post on the perils of information addiction, and Advent Conspiracy‘s call to “give more presence” during the Christmas season.  I see even John Mayer is getting in on the action, calling for a one week digital cleanse, starting tomorrow.

So here’s to a year of connection with those we know and especially those we don’t yet know (or only know digitally).  It’s been a long December.  But maybe this year will be better than the last.  Happy New Year!