Althouse: Happy New Year!

January 1, 2013

Happy New Year!

Are you up early, like me, or are you sleeping off last night's festivities? Personally, I don't get too revved up about the shift from one year-number to the next one. I think we live in days, and when life is good, normal days are the best, and the truth is, we live in days:

But if our lives are to have meaning, don't we need to knit those days together?

If we should take account on an annual basis — to put the Ann in annual — why should it be on this outwardly imposed occasion, this flip of the calendar from December to January?

"Yeah, I can get with that!"

30 comments:

campy said...: I went to bed at my usual 10 pm last night.

If you've seen one year in, you've seen 'em all.; 1/1/13, 6:28 AM
Deb said...: My daughter and I watched an old Hitchcock movie last night. She went to bed before I did. Then I woke up at 5 am to take care of the dogs. Just like the previous 365 days.
Such are the days of our lives...; 1/1/13, 6:33 AM
Meade said...: Happy New Day!; 1/1/13, 6:36 AM
Deb said...: Modeh anee lefanecha melech chai vekayam, she-he-chezarta bee nishmatee b’chemla, raba emunatecha!; 1/1/13, 6:47 AM
Mark said...: If you wish to do an annual "inventory", why not now? What better time could there be?

I do agree with Meade. Every day needs to be Happy New Day!

Happy New Day to everyone @ Althouse.; 1/1/13, 6:51 AM
Mark said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 1/1/13, 6:51 AM
Jim in St Louis said...: My Great-(27X)Grandfather used to love New Years Day- except that what him being a barbarian (like all my family) he used to call it "The Day of the Birth of the Unconquered Sun"

Oh the bonfires they had, and good food and the babes just falling into your lap. Hootin' and having a good ole time.

Then the Great-(27X)Grandfather of Al Gore got all preachy and told us that he had secret knowledge that the world was gonna end if we didn't all do what he told us. Lots of folks believed him too. At least for a while- then they got tired of his b.s. and told him that if he was not going to do his fair share of the hunting he could just move his fat ass out of the camp, AND do his own hunting and gathering thank-you-very-much.

Happy New Year to all-; 1/1/13, 6:56 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "I do agree with Meade. Every day needs to be Happy New Day!"

Yes, that's my point. That's the point.; 1/1/13, 7:02 AM
Darrell said...: It's OK so far.
Hope yours is too.; 1/1/13, 7:26 AM
AllenS said...: It's -13º, so things could be better. I haven't been outside yet this morning, but shortly, I'll have to go to the barn and feed the horse and the cats, then onto the shop to get the wood burning stove fired up to do some work today before the Rose Bowl starts this afternoon. I have nothing to complain about, but it could be warmer.; 1/1/13, 7:32 AM
Eric the Fruit Bat said...: I think we live in days, and when life is good, normal days are the best, and the truth is, we live in days.

That's the way I look at it, too.

But then again I suspect I've got dysthymia or something along those lines.; 1/1/13, 7:37 AM
Freeman Hunt said...: We observed the new year by saying, " Happy New Year!" this morning. Later, I will take down the old calendar and put up the new one.; 1/1/13, 7:43 AM
Phil 314 said...: This the day that the Lord has made,
let us rejoice and be glad in it.; 1/1/13, 7:48 AM
MadisonMan said...: I watched two movies last night, with my wife, and went to bed at 11:15. She stayed up for the kids. I was born in the Eastern Time Zone, however, so it was past midnight in my natal town.; 1/1/13, 8:01 AM
Anonymous said...: For the coming year: Happy New Year.

For those of the Bonnie Franklin perspective: Happy New Day; 1/1/13, 8:17 AM
lemondog said...: re: shallow, not so much shallow as boring........

We need interruption of flow to reflect and perhaps to refocus or redirect.

A new year is like an annual .... Blinking

Why do we do it so darn often? In a paper published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a group of scientists from Japan offers up a surprising new answer—that briefly closing our eyes might actually help us to gather our thoughts and focus attention on the world around us.; 1/1/13, 8:34 AM
edutcher said...: You don't like holidays?

A little something to mark the seasons, the passage of time? Not to mention, ditch work and have a little fun in your life that you wouldn't have had otherwise?

(would you sing, "Christmas Is A-coming", in July? I think not)

Anywho, a better New Year to Meadehouse and all the Althousians.

(Ann made it for me last night when she finally called someone a disrespectful jerk); 1/1/13, 8:56 AM
kjbe said...: One day at a time. Not much more needs to be said.; 1/1/13, 10:28 AM
Anonymous said...: My evening out was glorious!

Sorry.; 1/1/13, 11:07 AM
Anonymous said...: Steaks and good handsome company, good talk, fine wine, beautiful surroundings, lively, intelligent, well mannered people, just what the doctor ordered. The perfect way to end a year and start a new one.; 1/1/13, 11:12 AM
Anonymous said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 1/1/13, 11:16 AM
n.n said...: Happy New Calendar Year!

It's a tradition. Non-traditionalists celebrate select traditions, often without knowing their significance.; 1/1/13, 11:34 AM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: Personally, New Years represents the time when the days are beginning to noticeably get longer. It is a diurnal thing for me. I look forward to the longer days and more sunshine. It is a time when I can begin to look eagerly forward to another spring, summer and the cycle of life continues.

We don't celebrate New Years. I don't make New Year's resolutions, because I know myself and I will most likely not keep the resolution. However, it is a good time to reflect on what you have done, accomplished and failed at in the previous year and think about how you can do better or more in the next cycle. Plus a great time to peruse seed catalogs!!! Plan new projects for the spring.; 1/1/13, 11:41 AM
Sam L. said...: Very light snow last night. Sunny now; snow slowly melting/evaporating.; 1/1/13, 12:27 PM
Saint Croix said...: I used to get drunk for fun. I did this a bit in high school. Once I took all my clothes off at a party, after drinking almost a fifth of vodka. I vomited like nine times in this girl's house. Another girl, a "nice" girl, put my pants back on for me. And apparently got a reputation for her trouble.

The next day I was confused by the mud stains on my underwear. But I felt no pain at all. Felt pretty good. I did have trouble finding my car the next day. Maybe that's why I always thought Dude, Where's My Car? was kinda funny.

At the University of Georgia I got drunk a lot. It was fun. I liked it. One time I was walking home from a party. I was walking in the middle of the road, away from the dorms. I have a horrible sense of direction. You would think when I was drunk I'd have a great sense of direction, to make up for it, but I don't.

So I'm walking the wrong way, and this car stops. Probably because I'm blocking the road. It's filled with girls. And they ask me where I'm going, and I say to Russell, which was the freshman dorm. And they laugh and tell me to get in the car. And they turn around and drive me home.

Women are nice.

I spent half a year at the University of New South Wales in Australia. Drank so much, you wouldn't believe it. The big difference between Australians and Americans, they never stop drinking. You would go into a bar, little old ladies would be putting it down, too.

After college I didn't get drunk much. In law school I didn't get drunk at all. Drunk with power, maybe.

The last time I got drunk, I was hungover on New Year's day. It was an all day hangover. I just wanted to die. Haven't been drunk since.

Apparently I'm just a shallow and glib person. I know there are a lot of reasons not to get drunk. Spiritual reasons, safety reasons, health reasons, moral reasons. But for me, that damn hangover on New Year's day pretty much killed the buzz. Now I'm a social drinker at best. So my New Year's eve kinda sucks now, but the New Year's day is way, way better.; 1/1/13, 12:31 PM
Saint Croix said...: I ran into a drunk guy last night. He was having a blast, yelling in a parking lot. I remember that sort of fun. And yet I had no desire to join him.

Part of it, I think, is that when you're young, experience is everything. You want to experience things, feel things. It's all new to you.

But now I'm older. So I'm like this. "It's a chemical reaction in your body. It's false joy. Your body is playing tricks on you." So I have no interest in that.

It's interesting, too, this idea of being drunk. It's a loss of control. Being drunk is a bit like sex or love in that sense. You lose control of your body, you lose control of yourself. You "fall" in love.

And religion can be that way, too. People lose control, and they love it.

As I've gotten older I've gotten way more interested in control, in politics, in manipulation, and not wanting to be manipulated myself. In short, I've been more interested in power. Which is pretty much the opposite of the drunk guy in the street.

Of course, power is dangerous. It can corrupt you in insidious ways. I have to remind myself not to worship at the altar of self-control and authority. While it's quite dangerous to give up control to the government, it's often a good idea to allow yourself to lose control, and to trust in God. And to trust in other people. After all, there is goodness in the universe, and human kindness.

The cynic in me says, "Yeah, ask a drunk, he'll tell you all about it." But I think it's true, too! There is goodness and decency all around us. We learn cynicism, but if you keep your eyes open, you can re-learn optimism, hope, and faith.

I will say that women are way nicer to cute young drunks in their 20's, then they are to old drunk guys. So the world is nice, but not that nice.; 1/1/13, 1:07 PM
Anonymous said...: St Croix, being a bit mellow is much preferable to being drunk, especially as one gets older and is wearing spike heels, which isn't smart after a certain age either.; 1/1/13, 1:54 PM
Saint Croix said...: St Croix, being a bit mellow is much preferable to being drunk, especially as one gets older and is wearing spike heels, which isn't smart after a certain age either.

Yes, that's right. Also, sober sex is way, way better.; 1/1/13, 2:05 PM
Anonymous said...: St Croix, I agree.; 1/1/13, 2:27 PM
Patrick said...: I think we should sit back, relax and think about it, just like Glenn appears to be doing.; 1/1/13, 6:21 PM