New Year, Same Year

The skeptic in me wants to say that there's no point to celebrating a new year. It's the celebration of an arbitrary point in the earth's orbit that whence the earth crosses, we celebrate. But that means that birthdays and anniversaries and any event based on the Gregorian calendar is meaningless or at the very least celebrated arbitrarily periodically (lyrically, mystically, spiritually, individually genius). Now where's the fun in that?

Party-pooping aside it is a new year and the same battle ensues within me between being happy that there's a fresh start to a lot and dreading that I know I'll make some of the same, painful mistakes again. I've already given up on resolutions not because I know I can't adhere to them (which is absolutely true) but because I don't want to ride on the temporary momentum of the new year. The point that I'm getting at is that it aches to accept the reality that we never change as much as we truly want.

I think it's folly to think the ushering in of a new year ushers in anything else with it. For those of you struggling with our love lives, we will continue to struggle (with you together brothers and sisters). For those of you struggling with financial issues, you will continue to struggle just the same. For those of you struggling with "insert problem" you will continue to struggle. It's misguided to feel like the marking of a new year means it's time to get your shit together. It's time to get your shit together all the time, the new year marks a point that says we've been struggling for this long or for the more fortunate, we've been happy for this long. So it absolutely sucks to say, but this new year will be the same year. As an individual I see no way that I will change, aside from the natural maturity that comes with the experience of time.

This is why I feel we hearken so much to Chinese zodiacs that let's the dragon babies know 2019 is the year we finally can be more adventurous or it let's Gemini's know that 2nd December is a crucial date for them and something will happen. Maybe a younger me would have been annoyed at how foolish this all seems. We all have heard that saying on how the alignment of the stars in no way affects our lives (here's a dope song about it). Now I say, let them believe. If people are motivated to be the better half of themselves because they believe in something completely untrue, then so be it.

Far more people believe in the significance of the new year which is equally meaningless. It's far easier to falsely believe that the new year packs many surprises for us and is better than the last than to objectively say that odds are, this year is probably not gonna be that different at all. How many people have said that 2018 was the best year so far compared to those who have said that looking back, 2017 was actually a better year. Hindsight is not 20/20, it's tainted by a flashy lens that makes us think that the recent past has been great. In the same vein that we forget why we broke up with our exes until we meet them again, we forget why we struggled through previous years compared to now.

So for many of us who plan to rain on the masse's parade and say that 2019 is no big deal, just let it be a big deal. Let's be foolish and have hope in our hearts that this year will be great specifically for Gemini's and Dragon babies as well as all other zodiac and star signs. Let's embrace our human flaw to be illogical and hope that somehow, this arbitrary point of the earth's orbit marks the start of something great before the next time we reach the same point.

I've attached a photo that I took literally 8 hours into the new year at 8am on the 1st of January. I was on my way back from a new year's party, the first I had ever been to and I was inches away from just falling asleep where I stood. Some new part in me decided to whip out my Sony A7ii (Sony, it's still not to late to sponsor me), and take this photo, something I never do. So maybe a new year does mean a new me. Who knows? But like the pigeons, I hope we all stay marching into the light because new year or not, we have to march on.

Coo coo my dudes.

#newyear #resolutions #sameoldsameold #coocoo