A New Year's Resolution

I do not need to count how many clams I rake up in a year, how many times I listen to a favorite song, how many basil plants bloomed in my garden.

I do not need to know Eli Manning's quarterback rating, my town's place on a top 100 places to live list, the graduation rate of my students at Bloomfield High School.

I do not care how much you make, the horsepower of your car (or its correlation to your genitalia), the square footage of your home, how much you pay in property taxes or for that bottle of wine you hoped I'd enjoy.

I trust my tongue and my ears, my eyes and my fingers. I particularly trust my nose. And I trust I am mortal.

I have one New Year's resolution, and it has nothing to do with numbers, with ratings, with scores, with any measures of success as defined by our culture.

It is simply this:

Teach kids what matters.

If you cannot do that because of external constraints, well, I get that.
If you cannot do that because you have no idea what matters, find another job.

If I am not mortal, please forgive me--my behavior, if we're immortal, makes me one huge asshole.
Photos by me.