The new year means battle in the streets of The Hague which starts in the morning of 31 December with junior crackers and ends late in the night after the year change with major noise and flame attacks. Smoke and dust pass by the windows and fire residues cover all the flat surfaces. There are also casualties; eye injuries mostly, but sometimes arms and ears also fall. Half of the population can’t wait to fire up the year, the other half tries to ignore it.
For the new year, apart from the essentials, only one wish: to reset course, to avoid deviations more and more.
This concerns me personally but applies to all the new years of the last 20 years at least, more generally. I remember discussing with friends in the small studio at Erressou street in Athens, year 1995, how much our world had lost connection to its basis wandering off course and in purposeless bliss (or was it agony); maybe just an imprinted image from the science fiction series ‘Space 1999’, maybe just a clear look. Nevertheless, now with the financial crisis, many voices are heard describing the same, as a situation to reverse towards a solution. That brings to mind the anti-consumerism exercises, a game that amused me for years; very simply long visits to the market without buying anything at all. Later, the more my time was eaten up by irrelevant to my course duties, the more I felt the need to consume; mind in blur, strength shut down, submission. Never in excess though and quite reversible, believe me.
For our health’s sake let it be a reset year; 2012 on track.
artB 
really good to read. love.