One New Year.
First, let's decide who's leading and who's following.
-- F. Astair
I have never understood the expectation of the new year, of the end of a year. I listen to people, talk with them, and get the unmistakable sensation that they somehow believe, even the smartest and most realistic and most down-to-Earth of them, that with the new year comes some sort of bleaching rain that will wash the grime of the current year behind and leave us new. As if somewhere deep inside they believe that they will wake up on January 1st and feel renewed and reinvigorated and rejuvenated; like with the new year comes new hope.
Call me a cynic, but I don't see it. Maybe it's because come Monday I will still have to wake up at six in the morning and I will still be dog-tired and I will still have all those problems I have today. I can maybe comprehend it coming from kids still in school, or people who work in the education system, but then it only applies to the lower half of the world, since the upper half greets the new year in the middle of winter and who the hell goes on an extended vacation in the middle of winter, anyway, right.
I guess it's just one of those psychological defensive mechanisms; we're so used to the year, to the week, the month, to the cycle. Does it help? Do people who believe that the turning of a year is a new start somehow wake up happier on a profound level than those who don't? It seems rather like the question of whether religion and faith make you happier, true or not (you know: as an atheist, am I by default less willing to accept happiness, or whatever?)
Ugh.
God, I can't wait for next year.
-- F. Astair
I have never understood the expectation of the new year, of the end of a year. I listen to people, talk with them, and get the unmistakable sensation that they somehow believe, even the smartest and most realistic and most down-to-Earth of them, that with the new year comes some sort of bleaching rain that will wash the grime of the current year behind and leave us new. As if somewhere deep inside they believe that they will wake up on January 1st and feel renewed and reinvigorated and rejuvenated; like with the new year comes new hope.
Call me a cynic, but I don't see it. Maybe it's because come Monday I will still have to wake up at six in the morning and I will still be dog-tired and I will still have all those problems I have today. I can maybe comprehend it coming from kids still in school, or people who work in the education system, but then it only applies to the lower half of the world, since the upper half greets the new year in the middle of winter and who the hell goes on an extended vacation in the middle of winter, anyway, right.
I guess it's just one of those psychological defensive mechanisms; we're so used to the year, to the week, the month, to the cycle. Does it help? Do people who believe that the turning of a year is a new start somehow wake up happier on a profound level than those who don't? It seems rather like the question of whether religion and faith make you happier, true or not (you know: as an atheist, am I by default less willing to accept happiness, or whatever?)
Ugh.
God, I can't wait for next year.