New Year’s Eve is putting on lipstick and applying nail varnish to all of the fingernails: the short ones, the long ones, the scary ones, and the ones that look like they’ve been nibbled down too much.
Sometimes New Year’s Eve arrives like a gentle, kitten who wants to hide in the corner, mewing quietly. At other times, New Year’s Eve arrives with the chaotic energy of Laura Palmer, who wants to do shots with you in the kitchen and tell you all her stories. You’re hesitant, and you say, “I’m not sure Laura Palmer. I just wanted a quiet night in, watching old movies”. But Laura doesn’t listen.
Laura doesn’t hear you.
I’m not going to wish you a happy new year.
How can I?
The year is too long and opaque to know, for sure, if it will bring us any type of happiness. The best I can hope for, is that you have a happy New Year’s Day, and then another happy day, after that. I hope that when shitty, inexplicable horror comes to your door, that you will have the wherewithall not to let it stay too long.
I hope you will learn and grow from the bad things that will happen.
In 2022, I made a list of 50 fine things to do and think about, during my 50th year.
The things that worked very well all had a teacher, guide or mentor to help me, such as, my writing and meditation courses. The things that had a sense of community worked well too, such as swimming with friends and getting involved in Ebbw Vale Institute. The running went well because, this in turn, helps me to eat well, sleep well, and stay hydrated.
I liked learning more about the phases of the moon.
The things that didn’t work well were the Spanish classes with DuoLingo, the sit ups alone in my living room, and the #2minutestreetcleans, when Diane stopped helping me.
My main criticism of the whole experiment was the list in general.
50 things were too many. Far and way too many.
Also, turning our lives into checklists of efficient productivity, which demand external validation, is probably not the most helpful way to live. It removes the magic, mystery and miracles of this incredible experience, and summarising “life” with outcome success stories, makes me want to vomit.
Really, it does.
This is a fine way to approach our jobs and our tax returns, but not life in general. Life is too precious.
I forgot the basic advice from Marcus Aurelius, who says, “concentrate every minute, on doing what’s in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice” instead of worrying about the future. Working my way through a 50-piece checklist, was at times, another thing to worry about. Better, that I had prioritised four or five things. Or not worried about anything at all.
The Tibetans have advice about worrying. They say that if the problem has a solution, then there’s no point in worrying. And if the problem doesn’t have a solution, then worrying is not going to solve it.
I should have listened to the advice of Tom Robbins, who tells us to never hesitate to trade our cow, for a handful of magic beans.
He also says,
“I want to travel on a train that smells like snowflakes. I want to sip in cafes that smell like comets. Under the pressure of my step, I want the streets to emit the precise odour of a diamond necklace. I want the newspapers I read to smell like the violins left in pawnshops by weeping hobos on Christmas Eve. I want to carry luggage that reeks of neurons in Einstein’s brain. I want a city’s gases to smell like golden belly hairs of the gods. And when I gaze at a televised picture of the moon, I want to detect, from a distance of 239, 000 miles, the aroma of fresh mozzarella”.
2023 has no such list: I simply wish that you and I have a good day, and then perhaps another one after that. I will try and savour the good bits and learn and grow from the hard parts. I will try to be kinder, listen better, and be more patient. I till try and catch the magic, miracles, and mysteries of this awesome life, and give time to the raindrops and the frost.
Happy new day, and another one after that.
Shorter than me 
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