markreed.cjb.net : 2004 : Year Of The Bloke

2004 : YEAR OF THE BLOKE

So here we are again. Another January 1st. Another new year. Yet more resolutions you’re going to break as soon as you can forget it. Quit smoking you say? Yeah, OK. Oh hang on, it’s midnight, lets sing Auld Lang Syne. I’m drunk. Alright, I’ll have a fag. Typical.

New Years Resolutions. Load of old Rubbish. Maybe if they’ve called the Matrix film Matrix Resolutions, then maybe the Wachowski brothers would break their promise and make a good sequel. Who knows.

But this is no big deal, its not the end of the world, or even a century. It’s just the end of a year. We did good things and bad things. We made mistakes and learnt from them. We said crass, stupid things when we’d had a drink (and sometimes when we hadn’t). We stayed up late and regretted it when we had to go to work in the morning.

Life is all these things and more. And isn’t that what makes life fun?

But here we are. Day one. Two thousand and four. Another year closer to Armageddon, one less year on this earth. But then again, who wants to live forever? Would get boring being immortal. Knowing that no matter how ill you are, no matter how many times you get run over, you will survive. Just like that, like Gloria Gaynor. Or Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. Or Sean Connery in Highlander. Where’s the fun in that?

But 2003 was, by all relative standards, so so much better than 2002. I began the long slow walk out of crushing debt, I began to see a good future, I started to live, to love, saw the States and Malta for the first time, saw hundreds of great bands, and travelled all over. It’s not some great I-Will-Survive-self-aggrandising, self-justifying piece of bullshit. 2003 was a Pretty Good Year – I just got on with what I had to do, lived and loved, danced and laughed, and the world was a better place.

The victory isn’t any of these I-beat-the-bastards things. My victory comes from being happy. There’s so much bullshit and crap that’s been thrown at me, us, all of us, over the past few years, and the victory comes from surviving. It looks like we made it to the end, there’s no lesson to be learnt, no great change ahead. Life is as beautiful as you make it. In the words of Bill And Ted, be excellent to each other. And life will be excellent back.

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