Another year over, and a new one just begun

So this is 2011, fresh out of the shelf. And in accordance with tradition, this New Year is a good time for pondering and resolutions. Quite probably due to the change of year, that large friendly number which went on with us for twelve months on calendars, appointment notices, documents being signed, magazine covers, whatever. We’ve had time to get used to that big fellow, with a few humorous quiproquos at the beginning of January:

Checkuary – The thirteenth month of the year. Begins New Year’s Day and ends when a person stops absentmindedly writing the old year on his checks.

I think it was Douglas Adams who came up with the term. In any case, with checks having fallen out of grace this may well become an obsolete word.

Anyway. There we are, getting used to 2010 and hop! it switches to 2011, in a process full of symbolism due to cycles and renewal and fresh starts, so it is little surprise that some of us find it an opportune timing to ponder things past, and to make resolutions for things ahead.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1tfx1_mylene-farmer-comme-j-ai-mal_music

Avant que le vent nous sème
À tous vents, je prends un nouveau départ.

Let me seize the opportunity to share a few thoughts about New Year. The first one came on the way to the pub for celebrations; more precisely it was triggered by the sound of a distant siren. So I wanted to spare some thoughts for those people who cannot celebrate like the others, or at least not at the same time. More specifically: firemen and emergency hospital people, because some celebrations always go with carelessness; cab drivers and public transport conductors, making sure drunk revellers won’t keep the previous ones busy; restaurateurs, chefs and pub staff, frantically making sure customers have a nice family time, sometimes at the expense of their own.

I do not know how these people (or their close ones) actually feel about it. For some it is probably just a matter of putting off the fancy stuff for a few hours. I suspect there are many many different ways to cope. In any case, all you guys mentioned above are unsung heroes!

The second thing is New Year’s resolutions. As mentioned above, it is certainly a natural thing to think of, what with the change of year making it look like a clean slate to amend your mistakes and improve, or simply stop putting off those annoying things like, cleaning up the attic, repaint the doors, putting your stamp collection in order or, of course, the all-time favourite, to quit smoking.

However, it is also quite clear by the way people talk about these resolutions, that they are more for entertainment purpose than a proper lifestyle guide. They seem to be like fortune cookies’ soothsayings, a harmless bit of fun no-one takes seriously. It seems like a fact of life that they are meant to be broken. After all, any serious resolution could be made at any time in the year, when its time has come. Plugging it artificially on a symbolic date is just writing doom all over it, in my opinion.

Uh oh, it seems I could write on and on about New Year’s resolutions. But this would go beyond the scope of this blog post (ha! as if it had a “scope”). Until next time then, here is my resolution:

Publish this post today.

Wait and see.

 

Pictures credits: Rettungssani from Wikipedia, public domain