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Some realizations (or are they notions?) brew stealthily inside. When leaving for Europe last October I was aware of fleeing the damnably annoying election year behind. Interminable bickering is poor fodder regardless whether served hot, cold or room temp.
From my happy absence an unexpected thought emerged, stemming from a firm youthful conviction that life in heaven sent singing Almighty praises would be insufferably boring. Rather be dead. Rather Hell where the interesting provocative sinner goes.
But now, good grief Charlie, an eternity of acapella chorus sounds (word joke) a mite better than the continual chorus of complaint we sing on planet Ear Teeth. Not that I’ll have any control. I say only my perspective has gone where I thought never to see it wing its way. Heaven is likely not for me, but I bemusedly find I am now somewhat for it. Odd. Inexplicable.
When comes to New Years, I’ve cast off resolutions as being no more than future disappointment I manage well enough without prior proclamation. But, second regardless, there is some value in taking stock or assessing, the tradition of resolutions being but one way of starting a new year number.
To go where I’m headed, however, risks violating a position firmly anchored in ether some time past when visionaries determined use of Orient was ill favored but that map-and-compass orienteering was yet OK, for now, possibly, not taking into account waypoints and GPS.
Instead of Orient to indicate certain similar cultures, the term to use became Asia preferred. A step in wrong direction on account of Asia being many times larger and more cultured-dense than the meaning of the deemed-disgraceful Orient. Honestly, I already feel a preference to be plucking a harp than going this path, but will (third one) regardless stumble on.
Whatever the out-of-favor Orient was, places such as parts of China, Korea and Japan observed a New Year coming in with start fresh practices. Homes and businesses were thoroughly cleaned, all trash removed for burning. Old projects were to be either completed or abandoned. Labor out of the way, bodies went home to soak and wash in preparation for a fresh start in clean clothes as drums were beat and gongs sounded to announce the arrival of New, the noise also to scare away any ill-old spirits that might sour the new at the get go.
We don’t need anthropologic credentials to see the difference between our tradition of beginning the New Year by lying about what we’ll do verses an antiquated Oriental practice of doing things to gain (however briefly) a fresh, new start. Our way has, of course, the great advantage of being easier and requiring nothing. Who do you know who doesn’t routinely excel at that? Plus, having discarded much of the significance of the preceding celebration of a birth and new life, it’s a good fit and convenient to carry merrily on planning an inebriate’s New Year view with blurred vision and a hangover. My suspicion (for which I alone should be blamed) is the same wise folk who shudder in shame to use Orient are the ones who gas on about universal peace and justice being whatever their current primer says tis. And that’s that. So they say. Period.
Regardless (the fourth) of what’s said and claimed by our wiser yaps, I have the notion that cleaning house and attempting a fresh beginning is maybe a little more constructive a way to begin than can ever be found in overindulgence. Surely, every over doer suffering a hangover has sworn off ever again doing the same, until next time. Put side by side this way, seems to me the traditional Oriental way has a point or two in its favor over lying to one’s self followed by and celebrating that mistaken choice with abandon.
Pointing this, for what it’s worth, out doesn’t mean I have a better way. For certain, I do not claim one. The contrast of approach or style in recognizing a New Year says some things I think worth a few moments of reflection. Going into greater detail or analysis runs the risk of over-do and over-think. If you care to do so you’re free, but these days I lean more toward less in the way, as I see it now, of understanding some of my parents’ decisions. Never directly stated as family policies, there were unstated principles.
For instance, after I turned ripe 16 father never specifically denied me beer money. I suspect such behavior was rather common among most parents of teen insanes (a condition begun with pubertal hormones emerging as zits of indestructability and divinity).
What we can call basic rules were often times not said and were known essentially through practice. Any case, what people do is often more revealing than what they claim they’ll do or say afterward.
Entering a new year, job, residence or relationship, etc., with habits unchanged and ideas unquestioned suggest little real appetite for change or the difficult task of buckling down to work at it. A good many of us know the difficulty of self-reformation (dieting, studying harder, less partying, fewer arguments, etc.). Yet, knowing damn full well how much waffling and excuse making is bound to follow will stand huffing and puffing for reforms and revisions of entire societies, occupations, classes and classifications. Useless resolutions are bad enough. Standing to assert propositions we’ll not back up with effort, energy and purpose seems to me a lot worse.
As a child I learned to appreciate my room not by a grand act of repainting, redecorating and remodeling. The start was humbler and more attainable, such as picking socks off the floor, making my bed, carrying the laundry down then back when it was done.
Through small acts I began to sense things unwritten, such as a weekly lunch-money allowance being as much about parental trust as it was about a noontime meal. The grandest things we imagine and aim for are nothing without uncounted small acts to give organization and life to the future we share doing no more than picking up our own socks.
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