And so we turn from daily strife to reflect on all that we have to be thankful for in the past year, and all that we have to look forward to in the year that is about to begin.
No doubt we can all be thankful that we’ve at last had a whole year with a comparatively sane government and a certain diminution of over-regulation. Not to mention a year of not being threatened, screamed at, arrested, fined, thrown out of public places, and so forth, for failing to participate in the sacred rites of a bizarre religion with a blue mask as its symbol.
For me, becoming a writer here at the Good Oil has been a major highlight. In the bigger picture, there would seem to be a lot more hope for the world with the rise of the new media and the collapse of the old.
As far as New Year goes – the official celebration of it, that is – I must say it all seems a bit silly to me. It’s just an arbitrary day, nothing more. If it were the first day of spring, or something like that, it would be a lot more meaningful.
And as for that other thing that we’re all supposed to be getting ready to celebrate just now, I say a decided “Bah, humbug”. Celebrating the middle of winter in the middle of summer is ridiculous. And it is not the birthday of Jesus Christ: His date of birth is unknown. It’s a ‘religious’ holiday, supposedly, and arguably, yes, it is, inasmuch as professedly religious people of some description have decided to have a holiday then. It was never appointed by God, so it’s not ‘religious’ in that sense.
What you conclude from that depends on whether you see God as having the right to say what he wants to happen, or whether you think that God should be grateful for getting any attention or recognition from us at all.
So it can just be a ‘secular’ celebration, but if it is that, then what does it mean? What is it all about? You can’t have a celebration of nothing. If it’s not a date when anything particular happened, why celebrate it?
The only real reason is that it is a socially acceptable occasion for complete self-indulgence, which often ends up being disappointing anyway. So don’t be bullied into doing it for the sake of pleasing other people. You can just skip it, you know.
