1.01.2007

New Year

What, exactly, is the point of celebrating the New Year on December 31st? For most practical purposes, that's not how the year runs: school years, fiscal years, tax years, elections--all of these things (and many more that I'm sure I'm forgetting) happen nowhere near the date we celebrate.

I assume the transition is purely symbolic then. It seems people really do enjoy finding things to celebrate--but before the calendar reforms, April 1st was the big day (hence April fools who'd forgotten about the changing of the calendar).

Anyway, that's the New Year. In reality, our lives are hardly affected by the changing of that one number, but it's nice to see. And it probably says something about humanity that, despite the fact that our lives really move in terms of months or years rather than days, we spend so much time preparing for this one event.

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