New year means new life?

New year means new life?

Nildo Viana

End of year. Amid the Christmas and New Year comes the expectation of beginning and change. Fortune tellers, astrologers, among others, are consulted by the media and the public to know how will be the year that is coming. People wish happy New Year to each other. Every holiday season is marked by this expectation that the year will start will be better. But where does this expectation and these predictions? What is the real basis of this expectation? What does the passage from one year to another? Such questions are rarely placed, because people rarely question the air they breathe, and this goes for the "cultural air," that is, the world of traditions and concepts that permeate everyday life.

The expectations are the product of desire for a better life, a happier future. The origin of these expectations is of two elements: discontent and desire. Discontent with the current life (in whole or in many of its aspects, that if the modern society, refer to the professional, emotional, financial, political) brings the desire for change, the hope that better days will come, dreams They will be realized.

The discontent and the desire to create expectation and a belief in change and a pseudestesia (false sense) collective renewal. Forecasts people do not have, in most cases, a concrete base. This makes the mystical forecasts a strong attractive, because they increase the hope and belief in change.

Most perceive this process as individual: discontent, the object of desire, expectation, belief in changes to the individual. Although there may be individual changes, they are limited if none of social change. Hence the eternal dissatisfaction and desire for change, because even those who climb a step in upward mobility, enrich and realize desires that, deep down, do not mean personal fulfillment, since they remain trapped in a commercial, bureaucratic and competitive society continue feeling discontent and the need for further change. The change in the collective sense was more common in "primitive" societies, not marked by individualism and competition, although it was not abolished, but only marginalized in modern society.

However, the move to the New Year does not mean any change in them. The year is a period of time built through a classification process, using as criteria the time the Earth takes to get around around the sun. In the contemporary world, is what is called "solar year", whose origin It is Egyptian. What occurs is a physical motion of a planet around a star, marking certain period of time. This time period also expressed biological changes in living beings, among others, but presenting no jump or radical change.

The expectation of change that occurs this time of year is directed to the sphere of social relations, which suffer no great influenceThis physical movement that serves as a qualifying criterion for the length of the year. In addition, the demarcation of when is the end of the year and beginning of the next is arbitrary, a social product. Could it be, instead of January 1, in August, since the calendar had been produced in another form, with another marking of dates. And it was so, for example, in ancient Egypt, where the year began on July 19. In other cases, the beginning of the year occurs on other dates as March, September, December. Not to mention the calendars in which the year has more than 12 months.

Some superficial changes reinforce this collective pseudestesia renewal. How various social relationships are organized from the temporal demarcation of the annual calendar, this reinforces the perception of a change. The school calendar, for example, is mainly organized on a yearly basis, which means that the individual looks forward to meeting new people, experience new relationships. Even as a six-month schedule, the sense of renewal is reinforced by the general climate announced by New Year and rather amplified by the media, by mysticism and by religions. New Year is also the Football League resumption and other sports competitions, the promises of new programs on TV and a few changes that, at bottom, nothing changes or change superficially, or localizadamente, reaching only some individuals or social groups, which is little more than individual change alluded to above. Because there is no change in the totality of social relations. In some individual cases, the changes are a little deeper as to who passed the entrance exam or hit a new labor contract.

With regard to social relations, the changes do not fall from heaven, nor is any magical event on January 1 that causes any change other than a continuity process with respect to (s) year (s) above (s). The Second World War broke out in 1939, was not born this year because it was the product of a long historical process which led to its reason for being and existence. So if someone wants new events the following year, have to realize that there is a process that brings a set of trends and the sheer will, faith or mysticism can do nothing in this direction, as are the previous actions that will promote possible changes. Although the will and faith are elements that can influence events, the preparation and the present action are more important to change the future. This has nothing to do with the move to the New Year. A magical day when things change without any action in this direction is impossible. The break between the present and the future does not occur, because the future is built today - carrying the influences of the past - including the break. Nothing will happen next year that is not already prepared, or in embryonic form this year and in previous years. Therefore wish happy New Year is something empty if we have not done anything for the future to be better. The best way to wish a happy New Year is to do something in this for this to happen in the future.