Everyone gets so excited about a new year, but really is all that pep, vigor and exhilaration (I got a new thesaurus for Christmas!) justified?
New this, new that; we have been brainwashed since birth that new is always good: Look at the cute newborn! Like my new shoes! I need a new boyfriend!
On the other hand, we are also subtly brainwashed that there’s nothing like the old. What a lovely old home! This usually means that the authentic hardwood floors creak, the heating bills are $800 a month because there is no insulation, and the appliances constantly explode because the wiring was done by a 1920s carnie who was between jobs.
The first Star Wars was retroactively subtitled “A New Hope.” What was wrong with the old hope? Why did they have to come up with a new one? Could it be that if the rebels had stuck to the old hope then perhaps Darth Vader wouldn’t have been able to manipulate their force-flexible ever-changing minds so easily? I’m just saying.
There is the new beginning of a new year. Well, what exactly is wrong with the old stuff? A new year for some means a fresh start, a way to wash out the egregious mistakes of the past year and start with a clean slate, to devise and execute a plethora of newly minted mistakes.
Then there is New England. Are you going to sit there and tell me that New England is better than Old England? I’ve been to both and it’s no contest. I will take fish and chips so oily you could get the current administration to drill in them over thick and creamy (this also describes many cabinet members in the aforementioned administration) clam chowder, which is also very tasty but, and this is the deal breaker, does not come wrapped in The Daily Telegraph.
I haven’t been to the UK in a while; it does make me wonder if fish and chips are now wrapped in Instagrams.
But I digress.
I write this listening to the newly remastered Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band, rightly considered by many honorable people as the greatest album of all time. Yet, even though I am reveling in the sonic boldness of this beautifully remastered version, a little (old) part of me longs for the skips, hisses and crackles of my vinyl LP version.
And you knew this was coming: I have only to write two fateful words to make an iron clad argument that new does not always mean better: New Coke. To say any more would be to beat the proverbial dead horse.
I find the arbitrary notion of January 1 being the beginning of all things new just a tad arrogant, therefore I am making no adjustments to my life and/or behavior until March 23, when I will dutifully make a list of old year’s resolutions. Things I have already accomplished, of course, making success pretty much a given.
We also have a new president, but can anyone make a compelling, or even coherent, case that this new version is an improvement on the old one?
And what of new potatoes? Where do they get off calling themselves new anyway? They’ve been around for hundreds of years and the temerity to imply that these little newfangled potatoes are any better than the old ones? The ones that fought along side our ancestors at Saratoga, at Gettysburg, at McDonald’s? What has happened to the starch of today?
Even the word “new” itself has stumbled into a quagmire — add an “s” and you have “news,” but is that news new news, old news, or fake news? And shouldn’t fake news be an oxymoron? Or are oxymorons merely the people who use the phrase “fake news?”
In any case, remember March 23 is just around the corner-ish, so make your old year’s resolutions, like completing the Atkins Diet, starting those Jazzaerobics classes and investing heavily in Netscape.
And let us all remember that new isn’t always as new as new would have you think. In the immortal words of Pete Townshend, “Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.”
Steven welcomes your comments. You can reach him at st***************@gm***.com.
