What’s So New About the Year, Anyway?

It usually starts around the first week of December when that one over-excited annoying friend pops the question, “What plans for New Year’s, guys?” If you listen closely you can hear a thousand grumpuses like me roll their eyes. “What’s so new about the year, anyway?” we ask ourselves. You’ll make the same resolutions as last year and break them before you can even plan them. The parties will suck as they inevitably do. I hear you disagreeing with me here, and let me tell you that you are wrong. Think you had that one epic party in 2005? It’s because you’ve probably forgotten the horrendously loud music, cold food, warm beverages, sweat, excessive body contact, piercing shrieks at midnight, or the throw up you definitely saw somewhere near the dance floor/bar/flat balcony. Considering that around 90% of the New Year hype is about the parties, that’s a pretty poor show.

The few sensible ones among you out there will say, it’s not about the party, it’s about the actual New Year—the beginning of something new. Well, that’s at least an acceptable way to look at it, I think. But bear with me for a second and let’s think of it as a restart rather than a start. That way you don’t discard your past mistakes, failure, etc. Instead, you make them a part of the journey. Because let’s face it, there are times when we all need a reminder of that one embarrassing day when we drank too much in front of people we wanted to impress and ended up with memories we wouldn’t want to discuss with our mums.

A restart also means renewed hope and faith. Faith that you can be better this year and hope that you manage to pull it off. That’s quite nice, isn’t it? Now if only I could manage to forget how this same new hope can be a crutch quite a few times, I’d be sailing calmer seas. But calms seas usually indicate a lack of adventure, or warning of a gathering storm, and I guess we wouldn’t want either of those things. So, fine; go on with your pointless parties and useless resolutions. But also remember that this is a restart with renewed hope and faith in you. Sail those rough seas because you can and want to. The shore will find you eventually, if you don’t manage to find it first, that is.

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I know I’ve gone from complaining to some sort of sailing metaphor but that’s just how things go sometimes.

Turning 27

I have possibly been more involved this year with a fragment of a dead man’s imagination than I have with any real person (barring my biologicals). I’m referring to reading The Wheel of Time series, nothing weird. I’ve also realised that maybe that might not be very acceptable anymore. What if this version of reality is the only one I’ll experience in this life? What if those book characters really aren’t going to magically appear in front of me? What if the only dark lords to defeat are the ones in my head?

What if the optimists are delusional, the realists are too hopeful and the cynics are the only ones who’re right?