What is the logic behind celebrating a New Year?

[Scepcop]

I don't get something. What is the logic behind celebrating a "New Year"? I think this is one of those things where people celebrate it because "everyone else is doing it". But if you think about it, there's no logic behind it at all. I mean, an additional digit on a calendar year is not any sort of "event" that is happy or unhappy. It is not a positive or negative event. And it is not any sort of accomplishment to be proud of either. So why celebrate it?

It's understandable to celebrate some happy event, accomplishment, or new deal. Those are merits to celebrate. But just because a number moves in a calendar? If you think about it, there's no logic or reason behind it. It's an empty excuse to celebrate and party. Society ought to think of better reasons to celebrate things. Obviously, New Year is way overrated and devoid of any substance. What is so happy about a New Year? One has no idea what a "New Year" will even bring. So how is it a "positive event"? It isn't. It makes no sense.

People are not rational or driven by logic. They are programmed and conformist. This is a classic case of "people doing something only because everyone else is doing it."

[ProfWag]

Any ol' excuse for a drink, Scepcop. New Year's, birthdays, and any day that ends in a "Y" is good enough for me for a beer, eh?

[Craig Browning]

It's cultural psychology; a specific date in which "change" is to happen as we say good-bye to the past, supposedly letting go of grievances and short-comings, even debts -- a forgive & forget kind of thing and so, being life anew and without such negative baggage in our minds and upon one's "shoulders" as it were.

While we've all forgotten what the Auld Lang Syne song originally suggested we still sing it with a glass raised, after all we will create and embrace any good reason to get drunk and act like fools with our fellows, right?

[Arouet]

What's wrong with a community creating shared events to celebrate? Celebration is a good thing. We used to celebrate various seasons, guess we've reduced it to once a year.

[Scepcop]

Furthermore, most people are slaves to the system. They have nothing to celebrate each year except another year of slavery. Why don't they seek ways to become free instead?

Most plans or New Year resolutions either don't happen or end up being disappointments anyway. It's the same every year. It's nothing to celebrate, just more of the same. Next year, people will then say that the year was disappointing, and hope for a better one next year, and so forth, ad nauseum. It's pointless and fruitless and results in nothing - no changes or improvements.

[Arouet]

Happy New Year to you too, SCEPCOP!

[Craig Browning]

Ya know, it all turns out the way YOU make it turn out. If you choose to have a shit life it's nobody's fault but your own. Hell, by most people's standards I have a crap life but the thing is, I don't let all the stuff that "should" get me down, win. I can't! I enjoy the ride far too much to do so (and besides, my cat needs me).

For a person that feels oppressed, paranoid, and afraid of everything life is going to be hellish; I'm watching my 76 year old father die just such a death in that he's been afraid of everything his whole life and never dealt with any of it. Now he's a lonely bitter old man that don't understand why he's so alone. . . not recognizing that it's been his inability to trust and his audacity to think he's always right even when arguing a point with people that have far more schooling and intellectual savvy than he. . . I personally hope the old bastard finally keels over just so my mother can have some peace in her final days, but that's another issue, entirely.

[ProfWag]

[Jayhawker30]

What's the logic behind living?

[Arouet]

[Twain Shakespeare]