Goals
- Become a better chess player
Steps Taken
-Played every day of 2021 on chess.com
-Brought my Chess.com rating up from 628 in Feb. 2021 to 1280 by Jan. 1, 2022
-Read Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess by Bobby Fischer
-Joined a tournament
-Taught Jack to play chess
-Read Discovering Chess Openings by John Emms.
VERDICT: Success! (though much more to learn)
2. Gain deeper knowledge of physics and mathematics
-Read half of Mathematics for the Nonmathematician by Morris Kline (left off at invention of calculus, may pick it up again).
-Read Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson
-Listened to The Great Courses: Great Ideas of Classical Physics
-Listened to The Great Courses: Redefining Reality: The Intellectual Implications of Modern Science
VERDICT: Good start. I need to revisit this and dive deeper.
3. Learn the basics of strength training, and the science behind it, and implement a strength training routine
VERDICT: No steps taken.
4. Learn the basics of sailing
VERDICT: No steps taken.
5. Record a complete EP of original music
-Worked with Aisling O’Dea to get recordings of violin music
–Edward Cohen recorded “Looking for a Sunset Bird in Winter“.
VERDICT: Good start.
6. Take advantage of Austrian citizenship for descendants of Holocaust survivors
-Made contact with Austrian embassy, but did not assemble documentation.
VERDICT: Barely started.
7. Complete an orchestral piece
-1st movement nearly done (finish orchestration, prepare final score)
-3rd movement sketched (need to orchestrate)
VERDICT: Good start.
8. Complete new chamber music piece
-Completed first movement of “Burning,” and entered it into a competition (see below).
VERDICT: Good start.
9. Complete all 3 partitas for solo violin
-Partita #1 is fully composed.
-Worked on Partita #3 – still needs lots of work.
VERDICT: Good start.
10. Enter two composition competitions
-Entered 1st movement of “Burning” into NY Contemporary Music Symposium competition: https://www.nyccms.com/.
VERDICT: Half done!
11. Gain deeper knowledge of philosophy and economics
-Read Introduction to Political Philosophy by Jonathan Wolff
-Read The Great Courses: Meaning of Life: Perspectives from the World’s Great Intellectual Traditions by Jay L. Garfield
-Read The Bhagavad Gita (translated by Eknath Easwaran) and wrote about it.
-Listened to The Great Courses: Quest for Meaning: Values, Ethics, and the Modern Experience by Robert H. Kane
-Read Philosophy 101 by Paul Kleinman
-Listened to The Great Courses: Moral Decision Making – How to Approach Everyday Ethics by Clancy Martin.
-Read On Violence by Hannah Arendt
-Read The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad by Fareed Zakaria
-Read Debating Democracy by Bruce Miroff, Raymond Seidelman, and Todd Swanstrom
-Listened to Great Courses: The Big Questions of Philosophy by David Kyle Johnson
-Read After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre
VERDICT: Success! (though much more to learn)