Why do I need a New Year's Eve every year?

I was driving at 12:00 AM on December, 3st 2019 from Mojave Desert to my home (the desert of my own) when the whole world slid into a new decade.

Well, not the whole world but everybody who lives in pacific standard time slid into a new decade.

Well, not everybody who lives in pacific standard time because not all of them follow the Gregorian calendar for religious or other reasons. And not all the living things care about New Year’s Eve either.

So, we don’t celebrate the arrival of new year together at the same time because it’s different for different time zones. And difference religious, cultural groups and “cults” have different dates for New Year’s. And not all the living things celebrate it. You dog doesn’t care about it or your cat, if you are weird and have a cat as a pet. Yeah, cat parents are weird! There! I said it! But, more on that later. The topic in hand is the significance of a New Year’s. Your pets do not care about it and if you observe them closely they don’t care about a lot of things that humans care about.

So why do we need a New Year’s Eve every fucking year? We have many festivals to celebrate every fucking thing under the sky, I am not going into details but there are some crazy festivals out there and even crazier ways of celebrations. The men of southern part of Pentecost Islands in Vantau celebrate the annual Yam Harvest by jumping off wooden towers around 100 ft high, with two tree vines wrapped around their ankles. This is considered to be a precursor of modern Bungee Jumping. Yea, it’s crazy but, we still need a New Year’s Eve, why?

And the answer is a five letter word - “Reset”. Human brain is a complex mash of emotions, ideas and intellect. It can do complex calculations to figure out the distance between the moon and earth without computers and without even leaving the ground. It is capable of experiencing an array of emotions like love, hate, sadness, joy, anger, anxiety. It is also capable of thinking of its existence in an abstract way which no other living thing can do. Your dog doesn’t judge itself by looking at the mirror and say - Damn! my eye sockets look a little puffy today. Maybe, your cat can but that’s not the point. The point is Human brain is an incredible piece of engineering done by the power of evolution. Time carved out our brain to become what we know today - a living computer. And as any computer would require from time to time, our brain also needs a reset button.

Our collective intelligence as human beings has engineered this Reset Button in the name of New Year’s Eve. We leave all the pain or misery or whatever is shitty in our lives right before it and start afresh without them right after. Just like all the big corporations do every quarter, we evaluate our performance of the year, the good things that had happened, the bad things that could have been avoided. Remember those decisions you regret right after making it, you swear to not repeat them in New year. You adjust your last year’s goals by painting them in a new light and with new inspiration. You draw new boundaries or sometimes relax some boundaries you set last year for yourself. Sure, you were tough on yourself last year and set unrealistic goals and boundaries so you relax them this year.

Then you remind yourself of one thing which was most important to you this year, which you kind of missed or lost or snatched away from you. You make plans to get it back. This could be your health, your peace of mind, your fitness. You make plans for the new year, and that’s what keeps you going.

How all that could be possible without this clear time boundary we have created for us every year? We need time periods to focus on the job in hand. And what's the job in hand? You - “You” are the most important job in your hand.

That’s why you need a New Year’s Eve every year. That’s why I need a New Year’s Eve year. Because without that we will go insane.