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Nothing Changes on New Year’s Day
Marking the relentless march of time, as the great Gregorian number increases, loses alot of its fun the older I get. The pressure to fall into step and make with the anticipation as if any holiday meant as much or the same to everyone else simply gets to be too much. People just do not have the same perspective all the time. So, why do we do this to ourselves over and over again?
Hot on the proverbial heels of the manic months of mercantile madness on the approach to Jesus’ mythological birthday, New Year’s is the secular sop to the heathens for having to live every day of every year of our lives according to Pope Gregory XIII’s calendar. Just act normal and join the party…. Feh!
The older I get, the more the line between blessing and curse fades to a blur. Live long enough and the notion that a countdown to one particular midnight hour can alter the course of our luck, lives and human civilization for the better loses its ritual appeal until all that is left is a shallow and obligatory cultural habit.
“The graveyards are filled with indispensable men,” Charles de Gaulle reportedly said. But we don’t have to look any further than the comic book domination of our infotainment industry to appreciate that we prefer to keep our stubborn cultural faith in our Great Man (or Wonder Woman) at the Right Time theory of history and progress…