Hello 2023

Word up! It’s 2023! I hope you’re as happy as a sandboy, which is apparently a thing meaning blissfully happy. That sounds like a nice place to be. It goes without saying, which is why I’m writing this, that it’s OK to be as happy as a sandboy/girl/your identity. In fact, I actively encourage it. Be a happy sand person.

Anyway… 2023. New year. New start. New you, except that restarting the year in the middle of winter makes no sense. Nature has happily shown us how things work with seasons. Hunker down during winter with a good rest and reboot for spring. Don’t try to reboot your life in mid-season. Go ask a bear if they’re cool with being woken up mid-winter to put on some comedy 2023 glasses and see how well that goes. “But the likes, bear! The likes!” Some silly men, it’s always men, presumed to know better, and our lives are out of sync with the natural order of things. A natural order honed over millions of years. Of course some dude knows better.

Amazingly, New Year’s Day was 25th March up in the UK until 1752. It only changed because everyone else had previously changed their New Year, and the UK suffered from epic FOMO. It also signalled the end of the tax year in the UK, which is only on 5th April due to 11 lost days when the calendar changed in 1752. This time of year is when spring technically starts. Having New Year at this point in the year makes far more sense than what we have today.

Is it even possible to reconnect to nature this way for the benefit of mental health? Maybe? I tried to point out the mental health benefits of skinny-dipping to people who happily walk into ice-cold water with actual ice floats that cut you without you knowing because your body has gone numb from cold, and they thought I was mad. Going around saying that Christmas makes no sense because Jesus was actually born 6 years before Christ and that New Year was actually at the end of March, but they moved it because they wanted it to be close to the memory of Jesus’s circumcision is likely to get you laughed at. Unless you’re a rich white billionaire, then you can buy a platform for your bonkers views and have at it. Perhaps all this is good for small talk, but not for change.

It’s a shame. I think it would be far better for us to restart the year along with the rest of nature. New Year would signal the start of spring, when life returned to the world and our feelings of hope would be boosted by nature’s reawakening. People wouldn’t be going on about January blues. We’d be all talking about the trees going green, the flowers flowering and how nice the weather is. Surely, that would be good for our mental health? A celebration of the world reawakening in a way that makes us remember how we’re a part of the world affected by its moving through the solar system. Start the new year with reverence and respect for the world and each other.

Plus, I’d have had my tax return done before New Year instead of using this newsletter as a way to procrastinate and avoid it.

Happy Randomday! If you have any New Year resolutions, bin them before they bin you. Don’t add pressure to your life. Things are complex. Just take care, be yourself and have fun.