i suppose this is not your typical “new year” post, when everything is supposed to be fresh, clean, shiny, and primed for charting an improved course, but this is what i’ve been mulling over lately.

i’ve been feeling very unoriginal. it seems i have no distinctive thoughts, opinions, or observations. this should not come as a huge surprise, seeing as the human race has been in existence for quite some time, now, and the general nature of our species has not altered drastically, behaviorally speaking.

people still laugh, cry, work, & play; have family, friends, foes, and infatuations; develop hobbies, interests, relationships, and habits; make mistakes, decisions, love, and war…  the activities of our lives have not changed all that much in thousands of years, just the way we go about leading them, and perhaps the speed in which we live.

all this rambling is to say that much of what i feel, contemplate, and discover about stuff that interests me is simply an echo of generations before me, within the setting that is my life.

my passions are not unique to me: i could confess my love affair with tea and all it’s virtues, but it would only be a reiteration of billions across many centuries and continents. i can write about my appreciation for and delight in books and language, but my words would inevitably be a repetition of the collective voice of countless of readers and authors before me. i can gush about the influence of dance and music on my life…or confide how cultivating a garden provides a purposeful drive as well as a peaceful release for me…or wax poetic about the majesty of creation and the thrill of travel & outdoor activities… but i am a little late for any breaking news.

so many have felt and expressed these same sentiments for the things i love since the beginning of time that it would be futile to try to find new or better words to convey them. there are no revelations today that are any more than just personal epiphanies: novel to the individual, but certainly not the world (or the world wide web).

this is not necessarily a bad thing; i recognize that there is unrivaled benefit in learning from personal experience. passion cannot truly be understood by simply reading about someone else’s encounter, and i don’t think some things should be experienced vicariously.

my chagrin is not due to the fact that i have been walking a well-beaten path, but that in sharing my enthusiasm i am just the cover band, putting my twist on an old tune. my set list will always consist completely of old standards.

i guess my conclusion here is more of a confirmation that i write for me, and not to provide any revolutionary insight.

so here’s a toast to the new year, and resolving to eagerly pursue growth, knowledge, interests, and goals that are in no way “new.”