My New Year’s Resolution..

The new year is upon us, and many of my friends are preparing for an annual celebration of one kind of another, generally a drunken bacchanal at a club or bar, or a similar gathering at someone’s house. I’ve never particularly liked the festivities associated with New Years Eve, even when I was younger and more prone to the art of partying with my likeminded friends. It always struck me as dangerous to plan on going out somewhere to get loaded, and the whole idea of communally saying goodbye to one year and welcoming another never spoke to my sensibilities. At least not in the way that people tend to celebrate that yearly transition.

So instead, I will spend that evening somewhere less social, probably in a retrospective mood like the one I’m in now. We’re all like individual flames in a great dark void, and while humans are social creatures, almost to the point of being herd animals, that type of social structure can dilute our individual power, or at least keep many of us blind to it. We should be bright points of isolate consciousness, not just another voice lost in a screaming crowd. There is a time and place for that kind of thing. I used to spend too much time seeking it, now I prefer to Work on my goals, many of which have turned inward in recent years.

The herd is comforting, and being one among many provides a great feeling of safety, but that is an illusion that keeps us asleep. To me, it is far less appealing to cling to a belief that we are all somehow connected than it is to admit to myself that everything I experience is through a very personal subjective filter. We may indeed be “connected” in some way, but I prefer to seek out others like myself, rather than flocking to the same bright and shiny lure that others do, like a lemming.

Instead of taking shots or drowning myself in champagne at midnight in a crowd of strangers, I’ll be contemplating my place in this universe, and planning for the year ahead. I hope that you shine brighter this year, and that we can spend time together, celebrating the unique and potent power of each of ourSelves as individuals, not as nameless and unimportant components of a enormous and faceless herd.