I’m curious how people here are feeling about the new year…
Having now traversed 48-odd circles round the sun, and being all too well aware of the relatively imprecise nature of our Gregorian calendar and millennial time-construct, I tend to take these arbitrary markers with a grain of sea-salt. However, there is something in the sheer social force of collectively turning the annular page that prompts a renewed sense of possibility, some psychological release of the past, and some thought of what one might want to do (or, how one might want to be) differently this time around.
@kab writes elegantly of the ambguity of intention—its partiality and entanglement with the existential conflicts of our time—and it’s a cliche that most new year’s “resolutions” last a few weeks at best. Nonetheless, here were are in first days of another spin round the sun, so why not spill a few words on the subject?
Personally, this year, I am endeavoring to complete a big literary project, about which I will remain silent for now. I am also trying out a couple different language apps because I finally want to learn Italian. I have also recently started learning and practicing Qigong & Tai Chi with my brother, which has become a new daily ritual. Over the holidays, @Kayla and I started a deep-clean & decluttering of our house, which we’ll have to continue over the coming weekends. (We got through our bathroom, kitchen, pantry, and some dining/living room bookshelves so far.) I also want to memorize more poems by heart. I have just gotten started (a propos) with Eliot’s Four Quartets (“Time present and time past / Are both perhaps present in time future, / And time future contained in time past.”). We’ll see how far I get…
I remain acutely aware, too, of the many perils we face this year—as peoples and nations, and as a species—with wars raging, major elections looming, environmental tipping points tumbling, advanced technologies accelerating, and so on…
How about you? What does “2024” mean to you? What are your aspirations for the year? What concerns are you giving attention to? How are you navigating the planetary crisis/opportunity of our time together on this beautiful spinning & revolving Earth?
