The seasonal hypocrisy is almost at an end and soon we'll return to our day jobs or pass times as if nothing ever happened.  The normality of our everyday lives comes back to remind us that we're still bound by the strictures of earning and yearning.

 It reminds me of a scene in "The Fisher King" in which a busy train station concourse suddenly becomes a glittering ballroom and strangers dance and whirl delightfully beneath an almost moon like mirror ball.  As soon as they begin they end, continuing on their daily journeys seemingly unaware they were even dancing seconds prior and as an onlooker you rub your eyes and wonder if it was all some crazy hallucination. 

 I call it hypocrisy because it is just that.  For one week of the year we allow ourselves and others to be ourselves and themselves.  No excuses, no guilt trips, we just do things as we see fit.  Okay sometimes we have to pander to the whims of others but the Christmas and New Year period is a time for sharing, appreciating and enjoying ourselves and each other in ways that can only occur at that "special" time.

I have to wonder why it's so exclusive.  I'm in the habit of appreciating myself and my peers all year round, I don't need any particular calendar marker to tell me when I should be doing that and I know I'm not the only one who sees it that way, but there seems so few of us. 

 There is a small window which affords us a view into the ideal world (and this is only my ideal world I'm talking about here).  During the festive season we actually allow ourselves to relax.  We take ourselves out of the pressure cooker of making a living, struggling with personal issues, family bullshit, world economics, famines, wars, diseases and other horrors that the media bombard us with on a daily basis to keep us compliant.  While we relax we become more at ease with our microcosms and the bigger problems dissolve.  In those brief flashes of calm we are being true to ourselves and that makes us happy.

We promise ourselves we'll change in the new year, we resolutely make our resolutions to be a better, happier, fitter, stronger person but given two weeks the majority are back to old ways.  If you really want to change you'll do it so the excuse of a new year to me is a shallow one at best.

The New Year occasion is hyped into something gargantuan, it's the party to end all parties and we will have a good time or I'll be damned.  We wish only the best for each other in the year to follow, not mourning the passing of a year ended but bouyed by the prospect of something positive and wonderful to come from the butterfly as it crawls from the chrysalis at midnight.

And that is my point.  Why is it that we can only see the best in each other once a year?  I know, not all of us, but so many people forget how to appreciate those around them because they get so caught up in their own lives and allow their ego to fog their senses.

I feel I'm such a hypocrite when I wish someone "Happy New Year" because I wish the best for people every day.  From now on I'm going to say and more importantly live it every day.

HAPPY NEW DAY EVERYONE.