Before we get into it, a reminder that we have calendars !
Find them here.
Now is Good for 2023, it’s a mindset, it’s a prayer, it’s a tribute to this very newsletter and all of you who read it. I know thinking about calendars for next year feels very odd during December but somebody’s gotta do it.
Right now I’m that somebody.
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Ok, let’s get to the main event.
Existing during December in any way shape or form will toss you into all sorts of meaning. It’s the last “month" of the “year” so everything comes tied with little threads of importance.
I can’t decide what stance I want to take. Am I business bitch, am I calm pond girl? Am I a hallmark laced archetype: the frenetic holidayer…or worse is all this questioning landing me in the scrooge category?
Ugh, I don’t care if I’m getting grinch stamped on my forehead after this, I have to speak my truth. Why does this month have to be so damn important? Can’t we just LIVE?
A few years ago I thought it was fun to argue for zero holidays. I’d clutch a warm glass of champagne at parties, cooing over midrange 90s songs, I say get rid of all the holidays, who needs them?
My years in restaurants and retail soured me on the entire affair. Now I’ve backed away from that stance a bit—I guess we need something to make being mortal interesting—but I’m finding it all kind of funny.
In the past couple days, my internet has becomes a swirl of closing ceremonies, broadcast for all to like and comment. Thoughtful prompts are being shared, apropos of nothing but the implied presence of December. Every other square is a soothing reminder to be gentle whilst you recount the past 12 months of lessons.
All of this is meant to be helpful and sweet. The good intentions are clear. I myself participated in this during the end of 2021, with three separate dispatches dispensing closing exercises. I meant it all when I wrote them, but now the proliferation of year-end posting feels eerily predictable.
At first I couldn’t place it, I watched it creep around my mind for a few days, like the grinch in a who house. Just now it hit me, the heightened internet state feels like an all too familiar infographic response to a global tragedy.
Perhaps, this makes complete sense. Could all this posting, suggested journalling, winter induced visualization be in preparation for a minor traumatic experience? The loss of the familiar, the four numbers we have become so tied to: 2022.
Soon, a whole shift will happen and we will be flung into an unknown realm with a brand new number: 3.
Twenty Twenty-Three to be exact.
The twenty twenties as a decade are really full of themselves. They seem soooo special because it began as a mirror, a visually pleasing one at that.
We had such hope when we hit 2020, but the past few years have felt like the entire century. When we get through with the 20s, I think we should be allowed to jump right into the year 3000.
Anyway, maybe the hype of this year-end moment is really a response to this feeling that we are getting closer to a death. Only this time it’s a communal one, as we depart from the year we have all come to know so well. We remember all the years that have come before and we have the sneaking suspicion that one day we will look back and feel old. And that’s if we’re lucky.
The year change means everyone has to say goodbye to a capsule of meaning. We have no choice but to ship it off into the oceans of time and space. We have no choice, as the earth continues to rotate, no matter what. And for some reason, we can’t just live by the seasons.
We need these numbers so we can remember our limitations . We need to remember that no matter how big we can build, no matter how many atoms we can collide or intelligences we can manufacture, we’re going to die.
One day our personal ball will drop and chances are good we won’t even hear the countdown. The angels will whisper it, as they circle around to catch your spirit when it flies from your body.
And in that moment, the person that we know will become the past. The present will be nothing but a true liberation of existence, where the infinite is revealed to be within all there is.
We’ll jump into the ever flowing landscape of being and the body that encapsulated us will be a shell. Just like the numbers of years gone by. The ones you only talk about when you mean history. It will feel familiar, but that comfort comes with the price of the searching for a dimension you can no longer reach. Looking back will render everything alien.
So maybe that’s why the end of the year strikes such a chord. It’s not about this little trinket of time. It’s a memory of our spirit’s past, when we left body after body, to immerse in the dynamic consciousness of limitless proportions.
xx
James