Ah, the new year. A time of wonder. A time of mystery. A time to look back and say to myself: how did I let everything go so wrong?
Well, thankfully, there's an app for that. It is on a platform called LIFE and it is called (wait for it...drum roll...) New Year's Resolution! According to source 1 (History) and source 2 (Live Science), the origins of this tradition can be traced by 4,000 years to the ancient Babylonians.
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| Famed for its probably imaginary hanging gardens! |
These people--who, by the by, used a base-12 or duodecimal counting system--would bring in the new year around mid-March, with a festival called Akitu. Part of the festival was a reaffirmation of resolutions with the gods, to ensure that boons would continue to be paid. That these boons included the crops growing, the sun rising, and the world running, they were very important indeed. But now, using the magic of time travel...
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| Sorry, no TARDIS or Delorean here. |
We jump to Rome. According to the above sources, the Romans had a similar tradition whereby they would confirm their continued devotion to the gods. The sources, however, are mum on how these two cultures really connect. Did the Babylonian tradition influence the Roman one through the millennia? Was this a common practice around the Mediterranean at this time? Perhaps, instead, the authors have chosen to use this discrepancy to justify that similar traditions can appear out of thin air in disparate places. History at least tries to connect the tradition between early and modern Christians, but the doesn't actually explain how the connection would work. Were resolutions a tradition across Catholic Europe? Did priests say, "I will be raided by fewer vikings this year?" Did a lord look in the mirror on January first and say, "Do you know what I need? More serfs?" History does not say so, and I doubt that the sources do either.
Yet the fact that the transition did appear--suggesting something similar surrounding certain societies--so disparate might not be the best word. Then again, what if the place does not matter? Maybe humanity just wants to better itself? I know that I do.
So, what problem do I want to fix in myself this year? Maybe I want to lose weight (12%) or be a nebulously better person without defining what that means (also 12%). Actually, I will join that number. One of my goals is to be nebulously better this year. As I refuse to define it any more than that, I will certainly follow through. However, as one of the 44-45% of Americans who made a goal this year, I want to make something a bit more quantifiable.
One trend that I have noticed repeatedly over the past year is that I will read something absolutely fascinating and be completely unable to remember it in the time that it takes to read this sentence. As much as I love knowledge for knowledge's sake, it does not help me if I cannot remember having learned it (My dinner guests, however, do not mind. I have learned over many years that the search for the boiling point of saliva does not make the best dinner conversation).
Having identified my problem, the next step is to rectify it. Several solutions seemed obvious, but each had a problem. Rereading everything ten times would help me remember, but it would be tedious and I would have less time to learn other things. Stopping my reading entirely would have freed up a lot of free time, but I would rather my brain not atrophy into mush. And no one wanted to be my learning buddy.
Eventually, though, I did come up with a solution. Every day, I would write down something that I had learned--and source it, too! Every week, I would write down a memory from the week that I wanted to keep (but unless I write them down day of, I tend to forget them). Lastly, every month I would write down a new motto for the month.
My goal with this project is three-fold. The first is to train my brain to actually remember the knowledge that I am taking in. The second is to remember the people that I am lucky enough to share these days with. The last is to reflect on the month ahead, and try to anticipate what my struggles will be. All of which will be recorded in the New Years Resolutions 2018 page. Well, let's see if I can do it! 21 days down, 344 days to go.
