Spare-ribs and sauerkraut. My step-father always insisted on these for the turning of a new year. The old year was to end on something sour while the new was to begin with something sweet. So his reasoning went. It is this Janus-faced aspect of the new year optimism that we anticipate with such high hopes every twelve months, only to come back to another gray December. Time, since antiquity, was considered something cyclical. Today we think of time as linear—a line stretching from there to here, nobody really knowing where it might end. New Year’s Day reminds us of that obscure hope that things might indeed get better.
Since I’ve been cast into the role of someone dependent on business for a living, I’ve become keenly aware that, although the fiscal year doesn’t end for another three months, and the school year doesn’t begin for about six more after that, we open each year on the hope for better profit than the previous one. In a way that I’ve always felt earned economics its sobriquet of the dismal science, constant increase in a world of limited resources is sure to disappoint. What is really sought, it appears, is more for me, which means less for you. Born an idealist, I find the whole concept baffling. If I have too much to use, shouldn’t I share it with those who don’t have enough? Those who read about the behavior of apes would recognize this basic altruism as deeply embedded in the primate genome. Unless, of course, that primate is a human being.
I wish that a New Year celebration could be more universal than just fiscal success. It is always my hope as a new year begins that by the end of it we will all be in a place we would prefer to be. Those of us who live under the law of greed and personal gain have long felt the frowning aspect of Janus’s face. As the year turns over in the month named for this deity of thresholds, we hope that a smile might beam down upon us, and that a new year might truly be new. Knowing this is an election year, however, has come to cause increasing anxiety. Those who can command public attention are those with the deepest coffers. Those most unworthy to lead. We do, however, love our entertainment. The Force has awakened, and what might we anticipate for 2016? For me, no animal has ribs to spare, but the symbol has become increasingly apt. Let’s hope the Force is good and will awaken peace.
