It's the last day of the year. In the new year, I shall be back to the same school, but with a brand new class to call my own.
Humans exchange the better part of their life for the dream to indulge their thereafter beaten bodies in the seemingly-well-deserved material luxuries.
Yet thankfully, there are some who seek justification for celebration and partying – such as the eves of Christmas or New Year’s Day. The eves have the greatest people-gathering, adrenalin-fuelling and according to the papers today, hormone-energizing effect because of that celebrated countdown from one moment to the next which seems oh so significant because the first second of the following day has been made special to the people both by tradition and commerce.
Sans the cynicism, I rejoice in the existence of a New Year’s Day. A holiday is a great way to open a new year. I suppose we all need markings in time. The title “new year” pushes for some kind of new beginning: whether it be a financial one (e.g. fiscal year, paying the year’s income tax, annual insurance premiums etc.), a new year by status (e.g. going from Primary 1 to 2) or usually more significantly, an occasion for reflection on the past 12 months and a reason to embark on what should have been done in the instant the decision to have it done was made. (e.g. it doesn’t take a new year to allow someone to discard rotten habits).
The concept of having “new” year resolutions is necessary to humans. It is something like religion. I think it was Nietzsche or one of those wise guys who said, “If there wasn’t a God, it would be necessary to create one.”
Anyway, I don’t have any. Actually I do have one, but it is too embarrassing and private to discuss openly. Come to think of it, though I say I don’t have any new year resolutions, in actual fact I do have some inkling of it. While I don’t have my list in black and white, or even a semblance of a single resolution in my head, I have unwittingly joined the human masses in celebrating a new beginning, albeit quietly.
Humans exchange the better part of their life for the dream to indulge their thereafter beaten bodies in the seemingly-well-deserved material luxuries.
Yet thankfully, there are some who seek justification for celebration and partying – such as the eves of Christmas or New Year’s Day. The eves have the greatest people-gathering, adrenalin-fuelling and according to the papers today, hormone-energizing effect because of that celebrated countdown from one moment to the next which seems oh so significant because the first second of the following day has been made special to the people both by tradition and commerce.
Sans the cynicism, I rejoice in the existence of a New Year’s Day. A holiday is a great way to open a new year. I suppose we all need markings in time. The title “new year” pushes for some kind of new beginning: whether it be a financial one (e.g. fiscal year, paying the year’s income tax, annual insurance premiums etc.), a new year by status (e.g. going from Primary 1 to 2) or usually more significantly, an occasion for reflection on the past 12 months and a reason to embark on what should have been done in the instant the decision to have it done was made. (e.g. it doesn’t take a new year to allow someone to discard rotten habits).
The concept of having “new” year resolutions is necessary to humans. It is something like religion. I think it was Nietzsche or one of those wise guys who said, “If there wasn’t a God, it would be necessary to create one.”
Anyway, I don’t have any. Actually I do have one, but it is too embarrassing and private to discuss openly. Come to think of it, though I say I don’t have any new year resolutions, in actual fact I do have some inkling of it. While I don’t have my list in black and white, or even a semblance of a single resolution in my head, I have unwittingly joined the human masses in celebrating a new beginning, albeit quietly.
It's the last day of the year. In the new year, I shall be back to the same
school, but with a brand new class to call my own.
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