As eons pass, at least our hygiene has improved.

Waking up so late in the day the year ends! Bah, there’s no year ending, only in the societal mind. You can’t help, though, but feel a bit excited, not as much as most would. People await certain events of the year, like the day of their nativity or Christmas day, and even some, specially the older ones, despise the end of the year or the upcoming of a birthday because these events serve as a reminder of the inevitable passage of time that has largely been wasted by them. Instead, some celebrate their births at least once an hour every day of their lives. There are, among those, plenty of bitter writers living with contempt, and I, too, had more than my brush with that hopeless kind.
Little do many faithful modern Christians know the origin of Christmas, how a pagan celebration that began on the 17th and ended on the 25th of December, and it was a truly wild party. The neo-Christians, or Catholics, a branch out of Judaism (since Jesus himself was Jewish), wanted to do away with anything that represented that luscious Roman way. They found it hard to abolish the celebration, and instead chose the last day of such, arbitrarily, as Jesus Christ’s birth date. In reality, no one knows for sure the date of Jesus’ nativity. However, it gave identity and power to its myth, and propelled Catholicism as one of the most widely spread religions in the world. Ever since, the tradition stood. You’d be surprised how many educated individuals don’t know much about these events in which they invest plenty of their time and vitality, planning or detesting, or in a state of indifference, perhaps, but always affected somehow, someway by them. Of course, as time went by, how we celebrate has been altered repeatedly, impacted by many customs, civilizations, imperialist governments, the weakening and subsequent fall of the Roman Empire; colonialism. Nowadays, technology, as in the past literature, changed our world, one which is thriving continually. The arts always captivated the imagination of the people, and in the end, they were who dictated the pause and prose that could rival the gritty politics, always functioning in the interest of the richest and most powerful. They dictate the course of a nation but artists are masters in disguise, striking silently. In all forms, and by all means necessary, we are heard: books, music, films, painting, sculpture, etc. Film-makers, musicians, lyrical workers, gardeners and carpenters, to mention just a few. We stick to words, and leave others to judge. Our rights to party, part of our cultural inheritance, left us fending for our own skin and everywhere divided by the choice between pain and pleasure. Haven’t we felt ill for too long? I am a Christian by geographical chance, but I shower regularly and I know Como le llega el agua al coco (literally meaning, “How water travels all the way inside a coconut”, a popular proverb, more accurately translating: “The inner workings of this whole thing”).
I won’t talk much about calendars and some Roman officials to whom the addition of days and months was entrusted abusing their authority by adding more days so that they could stay in office longer. Not quite the Republican way nowadays, but close. I won’t go into details about the ancient Babylonians, but the fact is that the Romans changed many calendars, adding months and names so arbitrarily, why not change it once more when Christianity became the dominant religion in the empire during Constantine’s reign? Christianity wanted to do away with anything Roman that the sole notion of bathing one’s self was seen as a sin, since anything related to body and pleasure was forbidden. It was a religion of slaves, and it came to power, not coincidentally, in the already decadent Roman Era. An era known as the Middle Ages began. I guess I should go into detail so that my adversaries and friends do not see me as a fraud. Not knowing much about these affairs is okay, after all people in the Middle Ages didn’t know themselves as living in an era of darkness. To the extent of my knowledge, which is to the extent of the information I have exposed myself to, is disorderly vast and constantly striving. We also live in a very primitive way. We still function in norm with ancient myths, and no Calendar Reform will take place anytime soon. It seems as if many aspects of what we call reality, in fact is composed of fable-like elements, our faithful today know the teachings but rarely apply the wisdom of their prophets and masters. In any area of the arts, there are always icons, just as some have their idols. I want my word to mirror the mess emptiness has carved in us, and glue back together my shattered wings. Lick my wounds, sleep well and indulge every now and then on a daily basis, stand tall and march forward, sculpt my tongue, and lead. Wherever we shall step, we should leave ingrained our footprint so that others coming behind us can use as guides with our maps and their own itineraries. The Romans certainly knew that they could change and establish institutions capriciously; even the year, based erroneously on the birth of Jesus. Do you think that the people living before Christ were actually counting the years backwards till the birth of Jesus marked its forwardness? No one really knows exactly when was Jesus born, but since the early Romans couldn’t do away with the festivity, they officially made the last day of it, 25th of December, as the birth date of Jesus of Nazareth. As for the calendars, and the origin of the actual one, it’s confusing but not irrelevant. So, the Romans were capable of changing more their customs yet not so often their clothes. Our hygiene has improved but our myths prevail.