Strangely Naked

Don’t talk bad about 2018. I mean, you can, you have the ability to, but it’s not a good idea. Think about it. At the end of every year, I see and hear the same thing. It’s an annual tradition to bash the outgoing year, praising the promise and untainted potential, the hope of the incoming orbital period.

Let’s ignore the wild delusion of believing fortunes will suddenly shift toward the positive just because you pinned a new kitty calendar to your cubicle, and instead look at results of previous actions.

At the end of 2017, people said that 2018 couldn’t get worse. At the end of 2016, people said 2017 was going to improve, “it HAS to.” As 2015 wrapped up, people cursed its very numerical sequence and claimed there was “no way 2016 could get worse.”

Break the cycle.

I’m not suggesting anyone abandon optimism. But the absurdity of sliding around on this Mobius loop of despair-hope-despair only calcifies the depression, increases the the required dosage of alcohol to temporarily solve or absolve the existential dread.

Embrace the darkness. Rage against the dying of the night. Curse that you’re not granted another night to rectify the travesties visited upon you, to right the injustices.

Nah, I’m just kidding. That sounds like too much work. What would be better is to do what I do, and FEAR THE YEAR! Think about it: the years are listening. The more you curse the dying year and dare the next year to get worse, the incoming year hears the challenge. Stop challenging the year. Treat the years like angry Greek gods. Try to appease the outgoing year by effusively offering your praise, while providing the incoming year some sort of sacrifice or offering. It is all that calendar respects.

The years are angry, and they are listening.

Happy New Year. Please, please be a happy new year. Don’t hurt us, 2019. We love you already, we swear.