Happy New Year! Now let’s nap for a couple of weeks. That’s how I feel every January. I used to try and get things done in this time beyond time with disastrous results. One year I severely cut the index finger on my right hand. Holding your finger up in the air (to avoid painful throbbing) makes it look like you have some important point to make but it makes doing anything of importance impossible. Several years started with long drawn out colds or flu. And there are other forms of early year inertia that I’m sure I have conveniently blocked from memory.
Now I look at this time of year as an extended period of recovery from holiday debauchery and a great opportunity to just clean up old projects, watch movies and TV I’ve been meaning to check out and see how many days in a row I can wear elastic-wasted pants, no bra and Uggs.
<------- Everyone Else <-------------
Compounding the feeling of productivity mud is the fact that the planet Mercury went retrograde (started moving backwards across the sky from earth’s perspective) the day after Christmas and will not go direct (go the same direction as all the other planets) until mid-January. This happens twice a year or so and to understand what that means, think about Mercury, a god who has wings on his hat and shoes. He’s so fast that he’s FedEx to the Gods and deity of commerce and technology in many cultures. And right now he’s moving rapidly in the exactly wrong direction. Yeah. That explains your computer virus, that package getting lost and losing your cell phone.
But you know what? It’s really really ok to slow down for a few weeks. Technology and information is increasing by the second at rates it used to take decades to reach. We have access to so much information and yet, our economy is in collapse mode, gay people still can’t be married in California and Santa Claus now lives or will soon live under water. And I hope Santa has room in his underwater workshop for the polar bears.
My January contemplations have led me to some important revelations this year. The human race has created incredibly complex stuff all over the planet. Some of us are really really smart and certainly productive. But at the same time, we’re really really stupid and short-sited as a planet. What this means to me is that I am not only very lucky, but also at least as smart as the people who are now running the world. I mean, we pay our bills on time and we’re only in as much debt as we can pay off (so far). We’re also able to live in harmony with our neighbors and their cats. That seems like better behavior than most governments and certainly most banks. So for the rest of January, feel good about the little tasks you do better than the world’s leaders do their jobs. Pat yourself on the back for cleaning out the car. Congratulate yourself on getting to the gym one day in a row. Celebrate getting the laundry done.
Then take a nap.
