December 31, 2008: What I’d like to do during the last few hours of December 31

This is my diary entry of this year’s December 31 (2008). I write my entries in form of letters to a fictional person named Alexander, and each has a title similar to the title of this post. I’ve omitted the greeting and the signature at the end. Here goes:

For some reason I hate partying at the end of the year. I’d much rather I was doing something I don’t usually do. For example, the best thing I can think of which I’d like to do at 11:59 pm today is write “THE END” on some novel, or see a “Build successful” message on a final release of some program. Wouldn’t that be the greatest cause of wishing myself a happy new year?

As it is, everyone just gets drunk on hot wine or beer or normal wine and champagne or whatever they want to get drunk on, then they go and throw fireworks and then they go sobering up for the rest of the first day of the new year. That’s such a boring way to open the door to new beginnings – with a slight daze in your head.

I’d rather open them with a sense of completion and success.

Oh and all those New Year’s wishes people tell each other… it’s a display of vanity greater than when wishes are told to people on their birthdays. “I wish you all the best” is a statement I hear most often. I’m sorry, what was that? Do you also wish me the best possible disease to catch this year? And the best and the most spectacular death? I think you might wanna think about that for a second.

Or, there’s another one of my favorites “I wish you whatever you wish yourself”. Well, in that case my wish has already not been granted – you’re vain despite me wishing otherwise. Right now I’m probably wishing that you be hit by a falling piano, so at least I can laugh about what nonsense you wish about your own dumb self.

Well, these are at least the new year’s wishes other Croats have for their buddies, translated. Feel free to modify them to your language’s equivalents. I’m sure you have them. There are vain people everywhere!

On the other hand, there are people who are very specific about what they wish for other people. They’d say things like “I wish you to find a woman and get married”. I mean, have they no manners? What if I was gay and/or my boyfriend was with me? They also say things about school too, like “I wish you get all A’s this year”. I don’t, really. Never even wanted to. Besides, why would anyone want me to spend hours studying subjects I’m not interested in to get a high grade and thus distort the image saying about me exactly which subjects I’m interested in and which I’m not interested in? Frankly, I’d rather study programming more than I need to get an A, than study Latin to get a B or a C.

Now, if someone told me they wanted my next year to be even more productive than the last, that’s something that would make me stop to honestly thank them. But alas, if I wish that to someone real, they’d probably go away laughing because they really, truly hate what they do. They don’t really deserve such a wish.

What really tops off the whole vanity thing is new year’s resolutions. Basically, they’re wishes to oneself – things to do to improve one’s own life – and there’s nothing wrong with that! But what’s wrong is that people would rather tell others what they want for them, rather than what they want for themselves. Telling others that one wants to improve one’s own life is bad and supposedly selfish and selfish is supposedly evil, but telling others how they should improve their life is somehow nice and selfless and selfless is supposedly good.

I’d rather people told other people about their new year’s resolutions instead of telling them what they want for them.

But that would actually be quite useless if people told their close ones their own decisions when they actually make those decisions (if, of course, that’s in accordance with those decisions). In that case it would be quite valid to wish others success at the end of the year, because one would really know what others want to do with their lives. As it is, people know very little to nothing about others and what they want, hence the vain New Year’s wishes such as “I wish for you whatever you wish”. It’s basically saying “I’ve no idea what you want. I don’t know you at all. But I have to make a wish for you for New Year, so here it is, such as it is.” Of course, it’s all wrapped up in dishonesty and hypocrisy – and no one’s the wiser.

Of course, the whole ordeal of vanity wishes is gone so berserk upon humanity that people just say those wishes casually, without thinking, as if that’s the safest and the nicest thing to say to another person. Sometimes they even end an excellent wish – which shows that they truly know the person they are wishing to – with some vanity wish. It’s horrible! Like a defect that’s become so much a part of our society that it’s considered perfectly normal – and anything that’s different is to be amputated.