The New Year is about to begin. Somewhat arbitrarily, as usual.

The length of the day and of the year are physical constants, beyond our control. But the beginning of them is arbitrarily chosen by men. For instance, we consider the day to begin at midnight, but observant Jews see it begin at  sunset. And the start of the year is owed to Julius Caesar and Pope Gregory, at the very least. Even though at least one Pope was involved, I have heard no rumor that divine intervention was ever claimed. People just decided.

So we are stuck with the New Year’s Day of some long dead people. That does not exactly inspire me to consider the change of the year an important event in my life. But hey, it is another occasion to write. ^_^

Usually my New Year’s resolution is to not have any resolutions, but rather to change my life immediately if I find that it needs changing. It would be too bad to delay something good and useful just because of some long dead people!

Today I do have resolutions, but they are not entirely new. (I guess the name is a bit ironic in itself: Re-solution, as in the same solution over again.) I guess you could say these resolutions are slowly crystallizing. (When a solution evaporates, it often causes the solid content to crystallize out, for instance salt water makes small, pretty salt crystals. I did this as a kid.)

So this is my plan: Each day I will do something that would make an atheist wince, if he could see it. (I have every intention of never letting them see it unless it be in dire emergency, of course, since my religion forbids it.) After all, I already do things that would make a saint wince if he saw it, so I suppose I should try to level the playing field a bit.

Mind you, this is not an attack on science (one of my favorite interests) or even on impersonal spirituality. I believe impersonal spirituality is a valid path, but I am not absolutely sure. It is not my path, after all, and it would be foolish to talk with great pathos about another man’s path.