(An homage to Antonio Gramsci)
Every night I die only to be reborn the day’s next;
and this is my new day, new birth and my new year.
I reject the notion of the typical New Year that comes to pass with each year in clockwork, affixing my life to a timeline, to an agenda, to a corporate interest. Corroding the organic “continuity of life and spirit”. Creating the illusion that life is incremental with breaks “between one year and the next”; where my history stops and then begins again in tune with all the world without contest. Making resolutions only to resolve to failure.
We fixate on the chronological significance of history and allow it to convince us that history is flat and dates are objects cemented in time that “are like mountains that humanity vaulted over, suddenly finding itself a new a world, coming into a new life.” The New Year exacerbates the assumptions of history and blind us from seeing history as a continuous unfolding that does not halt.
“That’s why I hate New Years.”
Every night I die only to be reborn the day’s next.
“Every day I want to reckon with myself, and everyday I want to renew myself.”
Rest is not predetermined and I shall pause only “when I feel drunk with the intensity of life” — close my eyes and fall into the primal being and then return again with vigor. Every hour of every day is anew, building and collecting from each hour passed. Without the feeble necessity of a mandatory “collective rhythm” with strangers I dislike. Generation upon generation upon generation celebrating with nauseating and vapid determination.
It is for such things and not solely such things that “I await socialism”.
“It will hurl into the trash all these dates” that destroy our spirit.
Alas, I shall try not to become disillusioned while I live without illusion.
Sources:
Gramsci, Antonio, I Hate New Year’s Day, “Sotto la Mole”, Avanti publication, January 1st 1916
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