I Am a Walking, Talking Mod Platform

We're about halfway through January, which means there are still probably a lot of folks crammed into gyms or whatever, trying to hammer themselves into some form of sculpted physical perfection. New Year, new me, you know?

I abjectly fucking hate the phrase "New Year, new me." What a stupid fucking utterance. As if you cease to be you at the stroke of midnight on January 1st and become a completely different person. I posted a meme making this exact point on social media cuz I thought it was funny. I got one self-righteous comment that said something like "That depends on you" or some such bullshit. 

I tried to explain that nothing instantly changes and that change requires work but the commenter didn't re-engage. He probably just wanted to try to make me feel stupid. That's always how it goes with people like that. They come in, drop what they consider "knowledge" and then disappear before you can tell them that while they aren't wrong, they're certainly not as right as they think they are, either. 

Anyway, back to the point. I think "New Year, new me" is bullshit. I prefer the Frankenstrat approach to personal change. Allow me to explain.

Eddie Van Halen was not only one of the greatest guitarists to ever walk to Earth, but he's also the godfather of modifying your guitar to get it to sound, feel and play the way you want it to. You keep the bones of what makes a guitar good and fix up the parts that are substandard. 

One of Eddie's most famous mod jobs was his Frankenstrat, a guitar he assembled from assorted cheap parts. He said he wanted an axe that sounded like a Gibson Les Paul but looked like a Fender Strat. His creativity and vision enabled him to see beyond the pile of parts in front of him to what these pieces could potentially be together.

I infinitely prefer this way of looking at things to "New Year, new me" because it acknowledges the truth. The truth is that we all have aspects of ourselves that are worth keeping. Better to try to make what's already there better by swapping out the parts that don't work with parts that will. The truth is that no matter how much we might wish differently, we don't just instantly become new, different people. We are who we are. But we can tinker with ourselves, excise the parts that don't benefit us and add in new parts that will improve our lives. You, me... we're all walking, talking, channel-surfing mod platforms.

If that doesn't work for you, maybe think of yourself as a hot rod you're fixing up.

Restoring a car is a little different from modding out a guitar, seeing as how you're working to restore a classic piece of automotive art to its former glory as opposed to trying to make a cheap guitar play like an expensive one. But there are also hot rodders who will leave their cars rough and unfinished on the outside but modify and beef up the engines, suspensions and the like so that they have a car that people completely misjudge. 

Think about it. You roll up in your big-ass pickup on a car that looks beat ten times to Hell. Its body is full of dents, the paint chipping, scratched or incomplete and mostly primer. Check out this piece of shit you tell yourself, sneering at the car's owner. You ought to be embarrassed rolling around in that junker, you think. You rev your engine, issuing a challenge you're sure you'll handily win. 

Then the light turns green and that car you think looks like shit leaves in the dust before you can get out through the intersection. Whoa, you think. That car may not look like much, but it's got it where it counts. Wait. Where have I heard that before...

Sooner or later, I always come back to Star Wars. But I think looking at yourself as the Millennium Falcon works better than "New Year, new me," too. I mean, that's yet another case where the original bones and identity of the ship are still there but Han Solo upgraded aspects that needed to be improved so the ship would serve his needs. "I made a lot of special modifications myself," he said. 

On top of that, Solo added a critical element that all mod projects need: Love. He loved that ship and because he love the Falcon, it became more than just a spacefaring piece of machinery. It became something very special. It became a home.

Whether we're talking guitars, cars or fictional spacecraft, any of these approaches is infinitely more appropriate and realistic than "New Year, new me." They accept the fact that you're always going to be you. But you can be a better, wiser, kinder you. That's a mod project worth undertaking.