Superstitions of the new year

THE EDITOR, Madam:

Many seem to take a rather superstitious view of a new year. In spite of any shaky foundation that was laid the previous year, there is this collective air of great expectations of better things to come. This is an expectation that is hinged solely on a number changing from 2023 to 2024. And with the change in number there are hopes of a better economy, better living standard for poor people; better roads, reduced crime, improved healthcare and sustainable peace. Many seem to think that a new year will magically change everything for the better. Yet, if dreams were reality, there would be no need to wake up.

But there is nothing special in the arrival of a new day or a year by itself. Still the superstition in numbers has given many hopes. A new beginning becomes agreeable to resolutions that need not be kept, since promises are often dumped on the assumed fortune of a year. It is a kind of hope inertia that generates innocence and consequential irresponsibility. For, turning to a new year is turning from page from 2023 to 2024. It is a page which not already written, but a page which will be written, even if all one does is to hope it will be better than the last one.

HOMER SYLVESTER

Elmsford, New York