“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language / And next year’s words await another voice.” ~T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets
Happy New Year, everyone! Here’s wishing you a 2013 that’s even better than last year. I usually only make one resolution a year (to have a better chance of sticking with it), and this year I resolve to Get. It. Together. A tall order, but it’s time.
While I’m at it, here are, not one, but four New Year’s Wishes from Neil Gaiman, all of which I like and equally wish for you (though 2001 is my favorite):
2001: May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art—write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.
2008: …I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you’ll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you’ll make something that didn’t exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.
2011: I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.
Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something.
So that’s my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s every made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.
Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, Do It.
Make your mistakes, next year and forever.
2012: It’s a New Year and with it comes a fresh opportunity to shape our world.
So this is my wish, a wish for me as much as it is a wish for you: in the world to come, let us be brave—let us walk into the dark without fear, and step into the unknown with smiles on our faces, even if we’re faking them.
And whatever happens to us, whatever we make, whatever we learn, let us take joy in it. We can find joy in the world if it’s joy we’re looking for, we can take joy in the act of creation.
So that is my wish for you, and for me. Bravery and joy.
And here’s the Holstee Manifesto again, as well, which I think also makes for a fine New Year’s Wish:
◊ Regularly scheduled blogging resumes on January 7th. ◊
