1.11.2009

The new year.

I am rather aggravated with the strange (un)fascination that people take with the whole new years thing. Indeed, it has been ten days since the event, but it still sits in the back of my head, annoying me. So of course, I let it out in the only place I can, here.

New Years is not a big deal. In fact, it isn't a deal at all. There is nothing to celebrate, nothing to enjoy. There is no reason to hold parties, no reason to get together, no reason to drop a big glowing ball in New York, or any of the other stupid things that we do. What is there to celebrate? The fact that time goes on? Then why not just celebrate it EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR?

The fact that you have added another year on to your life is celebrated on your birthday. The fact that we've added another year onto the calendar should deserve no birthday. The calendar, on top of being poorly made, is an inanimate object. It doesn't care when we celebrate, so why should we?

Worse is the fact that we seem to realize all this and yet still go through the motions. Of the people I have asked, most a couple weeks ago during the actual event, none actually saw any reason to be partying. Yet we did anyway. When it came around midnight time, after spending the evening doing nothing involved in the new year, we turned the television on for five minutes. We watched the ball drop, downed drinks, and then went back to normal. Our cheer was weak and ineffectual. We didn't actually care that a new year had begun.

And then, there's the business of new years resolutions. False. No one has ever followed one of those things. People don't ever follow resolutions in the first place. Nothing was ever changed in human beings in a moment of fervor. No one has ever said "I'm going to make a difference in my life, right now, and lived up to it." Human beings are incapable of changing themselves instantaneously. People are only changed by saying that they are going to change themselves over a long period of time, as they actually grow into their new ideals and forms. People change over time. The idea of making a resolution simply because it's the new year, is just as flawed. No one has ever followed these, generally not more than a day. Why bother?

There is only one new years resolution that I will ever appreciate, and it is the one I make this year and every year, and every moment of my life. I resolve to be resolute.

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