2025 Resolutions? That’s too many resolutions, I have 10

As I posted yesterday, my 2024 was ultimately a successful one.

I acquired a theremin (as yet unboxed and an ocean away from my current location), I acquired a baby (doing very well, thank you) and I began a performance practice (which I’m enjoying, even if my audiences aren’t).

I also left my full time job, which I didn’t mention in my annual review because (for me) that isn’t reaaaaaally an important feature of the year.

I posted in detail a couple of months ago about my plans for baby-centred non-self destructive child rearing and my plan to move through 2025 picking up freelance, casual and/or part time employment in my usual field as needed, and as I’ve been able to do that very easily in Toronto without the more recent connections I have in London, this isn’t something I’m too worried about facilitating. (Thankfully I’ve also enjoyed doing it here, so all good to move forward.)

Workwise, I’m not going to “resolve” to earn enough money to be able to live, because as I need it to live, it is something that will have to happen, but won’t be prioritised psychologically at the cost of doing the fulfilling, important, things I want to fill my 2025 with: spending time with my great little baby and chasing fleeting moments of live performance.

Yes, the things I “resolve” (i.e. hope and plan to do without guarantees) are not the same as the things I need to do.

This year, I will wean my baby onto solid food and (almost certainly) teach it to walk. I will travel within the UK a bit again. I will create a sustainable freelance working practice to the point where I’m able to be selective as to what work I do and don’t accept or, if that isn’t possible, I will figure something else out. I will bond with the baby. I will look after and play with my dog. I will batch cook and exercise and live (reasonably) healthily.

All of these are essentially guarantees (unless devastating misfortunes befall me). Not like my resolutions! Not like my voluntary challenges and targets and things to aim for that will make my life better, but won’t ruin me or my small family if I fail. Let’s number them up, statistic them out, and then see where I end up in 12 months’ time with a statistical review. Maybe this December 31st I’ll get some data visualisations, too!!!

SCOTT MANLEY HADLEY’S 2025 RESOLUTIONS

• 1. Perform, on average, just under once a week over the course of the year – i.e. I’m chasing 50, which is a similar rate to what I was able to achieve in the second half of the year, so this one is about getting back into a habit from October and then holding holding holding as the year goes on;
• 2. I wanna watch more movies, which is a form I often forget gives me a lot of pleasure! I want to average at least one every two weeks minimum (26), and I’d love to get a cinema trip at least once a month, though this is basically dependent on how expensive the screenings you can take a baby to are and if the baby friendly ones showing films for grown ups continue through the year…
• 3. I’d like to visit at least one interesting city or significant area of natural beauty I’ve never been to before. I’ve never been further north in the UK than Glasgow, and I’ve never been deeper into South Wales than Swansea. I’ve never been to Newcastle. So this doesn’t need to be somewhere super exciting or far away.
• 4. I want to visit at least one major museum or gallery or historic site every month. Doesn’t need to be a different one. The British Museum every single Tuesday would be a biiiiig pass on this, if perhaps morally indefensible. I’d love to go back to the Prado or check out the revamped Notre Dame, but I don’t know how practical those trips will be with the reduced economics of parenthood… We’ll see!
• 5. Play more with music and sound – this is something I enjoy very much, too, though am not really skilled at. A noticeable improvement in my ability to play at least one of the multiple musical instruments I own is the challenge here (ideally the theremin). Maybe this could instead be measured by me getting to the point where I feel comfortable introducing sound (music, soundscapes, noise?) into my (hopefully thriving!) performance practice before the year is out? Two ways to win here! Which means two ways to fail…
• 6. Make the performances I’m doing weirder. More idiosyncratic. Stranger. Off-putting. Upsetting. Yes. I can figure out how to assess that at the end of the year.
• 7. Improve the amount of attention given to foreign language study and improve fluency. Same resolution as last year, but hopefully it works this time.
• 8. Be more authentic to self. Again, a repeat of last year’s failed resolution, but let’s go go go again.
• 9. Finally (for now – keep reading for #10), play more. Which is maybe a summary of several of the points. Play more with my baby, play more with my dog, play more music, play more with performance. If I am to live – which I am – I have to enjoy myself more. Yes. Yes I do.

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Although, actually, updating this a few hours on from initial drafting (it’s 2.15am and I’m on the subway across the city home (well, back to where I’m staying this week) from bartending at a cocktail party in a (possibly swanky (sometimes in Toronto it’s hard to tell as there isn’t as much variety in styles)) optician’s) and I feel there’s actually something that I failed to address in the above resolutions and also failed to address in my assessment of the year in the previous post.

Yes.

I forgot about needing to socialise, something that I don’t really think about doing very much, and I only really reflect on my lack of a social life when directly confronted by other people socialising (i.e. when working at a party).

I suppose, also, alas, sorry, that though I (a long time ago, now!) used to be a party person and spending time with and around other people almost all of the time, I’ve never really found a multi-person form of socialising (I can do one-on-one social meet-ups no problem, I’m not a recluse) that makes motivational sense to me…

I don’t think I miss or yearn for sitting around with people I either don’t like or don’t care about while we all get wasted together, but I suppose I don’t really think I’ve been able to imagine (yet alone implement) any group social energy/situation that is anything other than that…

So maybe this, really, needs to be a resolution, too? To actually have a social life, to actually stay on top of responding to messages and emails and and and, like, actually see people other than the like three or four people I regularly voluntarily see (one of whom is my biological infant son and another one is my legal life partner who I live with and the other two both have the same first name), though not at the expense of seeing those three or four people.

Being back in Toronto for an extended period has reminded me why I came here in the first place – I was running away from London and from myself. What I need to be doing is running to something, somewhere, some self.

I don’t know how to make that happen definitively. But I do think I’ve stopped running away a little bit, though maybe not enough.

I need to have more meaningful relationships in my life, I think. But I suppose I need to figure out, first, what I mean by that.

Let’s try to be less of a recluse, then, I guess, is the resolution.

The tenth resolution, and probably the most important: MAKE AND/OR SEE MORE FRIENDS. We can statistically figure this out at the end of the year by trying to estimate how many friends I have then compared to now. Easy.

Happy New Year!