First things first, it’s only polite for me to wish all you good folk for the new year and explain the title of this post: simply, the celebrations are done, the decorations are (mostly) down and the high is waning, thus ending the beginning and allowing the new year to actually begin.
Here we are, yet again at the start of a new year – the year 2014.
I puzzled over this post you know. Truly.
I puzzled and agonised and contemplated and even wondered a little. This is a new year. It’s also a time of parties, celebrations, revelry and the odd resolution here and there. But then I was conversing with Boss-Man the other day and somewhere along the chat we likened it to birthdays and it came up that both these occassions are unique among holidays.
Why, you ask?
Because it made us ask: what are we really celebrating?
On the one hand you have the more optimistic point of view which is that you are celebrating the start of a new year, a kind of clean slate, a benchmark from where to move to something better. On the other (and less positive hand) you have the idea that while we like to believe we will change with the new year, we rarely make any change of consequence and so are actually just celebrating having survived another year – whoop-de-doo!
I’m not saying I ascribe to either of these schools (truth be told it depends on my mood at the time) but it did make me wonder about the nature of “new beginnings” and promises we make to ourselves.
For me personally, this past year has been a good one all in all. To give you an idea: My writing is slowly gaining some ground, I started a self-publishing label for independent creators, Lil-Sis finished her 2nd masters (I’m stupidly proud!) and swimming returned to my activity list and I’ve been loving it. Even outside my personal life the world seems to be on a wee bit of an upswing in parts as can be seen by the anti-corruption movements not just here in India but everywhere and the recent rise to power of a new political party here that is drawing in the educated and more experienced “intellectual elite” who generally shun politics in India.
Hope actually seems to abound a bit I’d say, wouldn’t you?
Yes that’s a tad more positivity than I tend to showcase but I’ve always been strangely hopeful and for whatever reason, the year ahead feels like one of those in which if we took the right steps down that one right path, it could lead to bigger and better things all around.
So with that mind, here’s me wishing you and yours and the world at large a somewhat belated Happy New Year and all the best for the year ahead – I promise here and now to bring you many strange new fictions, funnies and factoids to keep you entertained as often as possible.
Cheers!
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Here’s an excerpt (for those interested) from the annual year-end report that wordpress so kindly provides us blog-folk:
A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 6,900 times in 2013. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 6 trips to carry that many people.
Click here to see the complete report.
And as a parting gift, here’s a song that I’ve always enjoyed and the sentiment of which I think people need to hear more and more with every day that passes – hopefully they’ll get the message this year:
One Happy Monk's Reviews 
Reblogged this on The Scribe-Cave! and commented:
Hello everyone!
I was going to make out a snappy new post (or a grumpy one) for the new year, but then I realised that like resolutions, I don’t have anything Earth-shakingly worth trying to change and make new in terms of how I FEEL about the whole “New Year” experience.
SO, I’ve elected to re-share some of my feelings from the last new year before I make some new posts for the new year.
Hope this finds you all hale and hearty and in good spirits and that you can share in the spirit that this post tries to express.