The preclusion of a new year cliche

I’m a person (like many others probably) that is easily put off by clichés. They are so unimpressive and sometimes (like many others) I can get super brutal in pointing that lack of originality out. I mean I think that playing Christmas music at Christmas is super cliché. Yeah. So unoriginal. Teehee.

How cliché is the whole new year movement? Very. Yeah, even the end of the year, beginning of another year blog posts that swamp my newsfeed ( including this one). Still the biggest reason for me mostly is because of how unfoundationalised it all is. The direction, the celebrations, the resolutions. Let’s lose weight and let’s make more friends, all the while not slacking on those javas meals, you are even in the Selfie Competition for the 30 day dinner, and all the while retaining social media as probable platforms for friendship formulation. Nope. It’s just so typical of humanity is all. So flawed. So predictably fallible.

The French poet Gerad de Nerval once said, “The first man who compared woman to a rose was a poet, the second, an imbecile.” Wikipedia describes a cliché is an expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has become overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, even to the point of being trite or irritating, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel. Used sparingly, it may succeed, but the use of a cliché in writing, speech, or argument is generally considered a mark of inexperience or lack of originality.

The substantive construct of “a cliché” goes very far and deep in telling us about humans; and no, they aren’t extra terrestrials that are undecipherable. They are you and me, and the things they come up with produce the understanding sought. We can understand ourselves as humans. I can understand myself.

We are eager to be impressed. We all know that. But by Jove that impression must be pristinely unheard of and especially unimaginable. I mean Intellectual property and all its foundations are about requirements of non-disclosure and an absence of anticipation by prior art. Apart from that and your invention, mister is not patentable. I guess that puts a stop to my dreams of inventing a magic broom stick( for personal Quidditch matches with my favorite humans), coz J. K Rowling already told the world about it.(The irony) All I can do is hope my lawyers can capitalize on that, “person skilled in the ordinary art” loophole. But in any case, how impressive and unheard of would that be? I trust us, (even myself) to find the obviousness, however subtle in a criticism that makes it all dreadfully and suddenly unappealing. I can make it tediously dreary in a second.

We are captivated by the new. It’s fun to start with the discovery of the new; that is until it gets old. Then we find something newer that will eventually become old as well. It’s part of living and the analysis of life I guess. We do that with everything; ideas, art, fashion philosophies, religions. One day a long time ago, wearing a bonnet was new, now its old.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad thing sometimes. We can apply these standards and requirements to all sorts of things justifiably. I mean aren’t we tired of Pitbull and his Mr. Worldwide chants in every random song he must feature. In a sense, the appreciation for these articulations of basic human aesthetic save us eventually. Yes, even from Pitbull there is redemption.

But what about when we cross the line and the innocents are in the cross fire or in deliberate interface with these demands from deep within us? Aren’t there those ideas that will never get old however much they are said again and again?

As I usually mention to those that allow me to, I believe living is an art. I realize that human existence is a form of artistry. Living can be defined as the craft of being the best human you can be. Life and living to me is the expression of humanity, it is a very intense form of artistry. It is piercingly candor in its ugliness and beauty, and ambivalently so because life is life, and art is anything that can help us see that; even life itself.

But there should be some things that everlastingly endure and should, even if normatively, be preserved from the brutal dismissal of “obviousness.” Culture, people and societal infrastructure change. But see, the humans don’t. Yes, we used to appreciate that the sight of a lady’s ankles was indecency, until now on some beaches in Europe she can be butt naked. I’m saying that there is a fundamentally entrenched character and nature of humanity that can’t be yanked out by the pull of progressiveness, or slowly eroded by all the waters of dynamism and  trends of vogue, that drench our minds with all the millennials shall use to conquer the world, and themselves in it. The girders that keep that nature in check must be kept safe.

Even with the “out with the old in with new” vibes from everyone and everything at this time, I realize that there are some things that never get old.

1.      Thankfulness; for everything we have as unto us from God who owns all. That gratitude aligns our hearts to remember in humility that he is the giver and all we have are gifts, yet as the giver he remains greater than the gifts. The stewardship of all those gifts are then eventually properly put in perspective. We know who we are and where we are going when we are thankful.

2.      Love; that brilliant complexity that is in fact complex because of its intricacy and beauty must be sought and defended. Even though from it should come pain and anguish. C. S Lewis said,

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable”

3.      Faith; that great conviction in the knowledge from experience and from the word that God is good and that he is God. He is not a tyrant king. He does not delight in suffering.

4.      Hope; this whole mixture in the end produces a hope that reels and surges like rushing waters within us. It can’t let us just be; it gives us direction and as it calls out to us it provides purpose and meaning.

Even while some things get old, these things cannot and do not. I’m trying to remind you and me that these things don’t exist independently otherwise there would be no point in this entry and all the distinctions I have tried to make.

They exist within life and because of that, life is an art that in these aspects never becomes unoriginal or unimpressive.

A hopeful spirit is not folly as many of us would believe depending on what the last year went like. It is an always beautiful resolution. Loving  mustn’t cease because of the difficulty, but must be continued and perfected. Joy must be realized in the things that truly contain it.

 Chasing the success and the achievements for the inkling that they are joy filled, without the true understanding  that joy comes from fulfillment and fulfillment from living for the reason that you were created, is the thing that is instead cliché and unimpressive and unoriginal. Therefore faith and conviction that the chaos everly present in your art has a purpose in refining and building your character must be sustained, and the hope for something to temporarily give shouldn’t overshadow the eventual end sought.

2016 was a crazy year for me. It was great and it sucked. Victory and failure, joy and sorrow, lost love and found love- life.That is the intricacy of living. 2016 was just the expression of life. The art in it expressed simply teaches me this lesson. 

This entry is an imploration to you and myself to strive yet again as this year begins for the things that will never get old, unoriginal or impressive. Yeah, it seems a cliché thing to say! Haha. But that’s on the surface and just prima facie. Dig a little deeper and you  will see that it isn’t.

While we take out the old and bring in the new, we must remember some stuff never gets old.

Happy new 2017 to you.