Happy New Year!

Swimmers!

We here at Lifeguard Nights hope 2010 has been treating you well so far, with many warm hugs and kisses, rubs and tugs, cakes and cookies, so on and so forth! 2008 was great, 2009 was fine and 2010 shall be...well, to be honest, the initial word that came to me was "enh," which is the sound of my apathetic, disaffected shrug. However, in keeping with the spirit of rebirth that each new year provides (albeit fleetingly), I have decided that 2010 shall be...ZENH! Zenh is very similar to "enh" except the shrug-sound is now less disaffected and more meditative, plus with a z sound at the beginning of it.

[I will just say right now, so as not to sound like one of the pseudo-spiritual assholes described in "Amen," that I am no expert on Zen Buddhism, nor do I pretend to practice it, or intend to start practicing it. Everything I know about Zen I learned from Wikipedia, and The Golden Child (and now that I think about it, especially the part where the title character turns a Pepsi can into a dancing figurine, I'm pretty sure that movie has nothing to do with Buddhism.)]

Zenh, however, the philosophy that I'm making up right now as I type this, meets somewhere in the middle between bitter, dejected detachment, and enlightenment. The three tenets of Zenh are as follows:

1. Shit is going to piss you off. When shit pisses you off, ignore the shit as best you can. Do not, under any circumstances dwell on the shit. There's always going to be more shit.

2. Avoid the shit, unless the shit is unavoidable. Some examples of this type of shit: Drama, Stress, Heavy Lifting, Vomiting, etc.

3. Choose to do the shit that you love, first and foremost, no matter what other people are trying to get you to do, and no matter what they think/say/write about what the shit you are doing. (NOTE: The word "do" can be replaced with "be" as I believe one is what one does. I shall henceforth call this the "Do/Be" principle.)

That's all I can think of at the moment. I'm sure there's some shit I'm leaving out. Basically, just like every year, I hope 2010 is healthy and productive not only for Lifeguard Nights, but for you all as well. Do not doubt yourselves or your abilities. Make some art and share it with your friends and/or the world. Do not buy the dishonest shit the mang is trying to sell you. His shit sucks.

Safe swimming and do/be it up,

Vincent and Lifeguard Nights