Cindy Milstein (they)Not my New Years.
Not this date established by a dictator, Julius Caesar, and his empire, then reaffirmed by the Papal State, and now upheld by capital and its food+alcohol industry.
Not this date that tries to hide, erase, and obliterate the new years that move in relation to the moon and sun—the lunar and solar calendars that offer life rhythms and meaning-filled rituals for most cultures, save for the death cult in power.
On January 1, 1916, Antonio Gramsci wrote about why he hated New Years, which “fall like fixed maturities, which turn life and human spirit into a commercial concern with its neat final balance, its outstanding amounts, its budget for the new management. They make us lose the continuity of life and spirit.”
This past year, we’ve lost profound amounts of life and spirit, not to mention lives. “Fuck [12] 2022,” as tagged on a wall I saw this summer, is an understatement, and wishing for a better 2023 feels false. That’s another reason to hate New Years: it suggests that some force outside us—like turning a calendar page—can right this wrong world.
Ahead of the “highest” of the four Jewish lunisolar new years annually, Rosh Hashanah, many days are spent, individually and communally, in reflecting on how well we did in terms of mending this world. When on Rosh Hashanah the world is symbolically created anew, all we have moving forward is ourselves and each other, messy and beautiful, in terms of doing better at it.
This 2022 may not be the worst of human history, but it feels that way, when mass death, fascism, and ecocide are some of its highlights. They and other social ills have not only stolen our moon and sun but also nearly everything else, leaving most of us stripped to the bone, having lost everything from trust and faith to friends and community to health and more.
I recently saw this print on a friend’s wall, created by Levi Coven, reading: “Nothing left but each other.” When we’re all so depleted, so traumatized, it’s hard to act—and with kindness and collective care—on that abundance: us, ourselves, each other, our life force. Yet if we don’t try harder, daily, in the days of 2023 ahead, we’ll have nothing at all.
#NotMyNewYear
#RitualsAsResistance
#LoveAndSolidarity
For Gramsci’s full “I Hate New Year’s Day” essay (with thanks to Zoé Samudzi for sharing it earlier today on social media):
I Hate New Year's Day - Viewpoint Magazine
That's why I hate New Year's. I want every morning to be a new year's for me. Every day I want to reckon with myself, and every day I want to renew myself. No day set aside for rest. I choose my pauses myself, when I feel drunk with the intensity of life and I want to plunge into animality to draw from it new vigour.