grumpyThat New Year urge for self destruction.
January 6th 2008 22:22
I have always been skeptical of evolutionary theory, and the arrival of each New Year only reinforces my belief that we survive in spite of an innate urge for self destruction.
I have always shunned New Years eve parties - untill this year. Thus, somewhat disoriented and just a trifle unsteady on my feet I stagger out into the late morning sunshine on January the first like a suvivor of some major disaster.
Inert, contorted bodies of the wounded and battle weary litter the house, and the garden reveals a landscape not unlike the French countryside after the Battle of the Somme. Bottles, like spent shell casings lay scattered over the ground; some, whose lethal charge remains only partially consumed, still stand, like monuments to the fallen. The dog wanders here and there, sniffing the detritus of battle and other shapeless mounds now dessicating under in the heat of the midday sun, while I stand, absorbing the benificence of this Solar God and pray the medics might be wrong and that brain cells do in fact regenerate.
Around me the world of nature appears unmoved, unchanged by the events of the previous evening, while I survey this end to the holocaust we call the Festive Season, and wonder - why do we do it?
Since the time early man fixed the date of the mid winter solstice events seem to have gathered about this time of year, and I cannot imagine things have changed much. No doubt the early plains dweller arose to greet the first day of the new year with much the same difficulty as myself.
Perhaps the tradition of the "New Years Resolution" arose with just such an anonymous tribesman, staggering bleary eyed from his tent some Pleistocene morning and vowing: "never to touch the stuff again!"
May the rest of the year be good to you.
I have always shunned New Years eve parties - untill this year. Thus, somewhat disoriented and just a trifle unsteady on my feet I stagger out into the late morning sunshine on January the first like a suvivor of some major disaster.
Inert, contorted bodies of the wounded and battle weary litter the house, and the garden reveals a landscape not unlike the French countryside after the Battle of the Somme. Bottles, like spent shell casings lay scattered over the ground; some, whose lethal charge remains only partially consumed, still stand, like monuments to the fallen. The dog wanders here and there, sniffing the detritus of battle and other shapeless mounds now dessicating under in the heat of the midday sun, while I stand, absorbing the benificence of this Solar God and pray the medics might be wrong and that brain cells do in fact regenerate.
Since the time early man fixed the date of the mid winter solstice events seem to have gathered about this time of year, and I cannot imagine things have changed much. No doubt the early plains dweller arose to greet the first day of the new year with much the same difficulty as myself.
Perhaps the tradition of the "New Years Resolution" arose with just such an anonymous tribesman, staggering bleary eyed from his tent some Pleistocene morning and vowing: "never to touch the stuff again!"
May the rest of the year be good to you.
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