Happy Chinese New Year!

Today starts the new day of the year of the Dog in the Chinese calendar year 4704.

I'd offer you wishes of a happy and prosperous new year, but I must remove the stake lodged in my heart first. This month so far there has been a battery of emotional attacks against me. I wonder if I am bringing these attacks upon myself by the things that I am doing. People I see, talk to and share with have taken some things I have said or done and responded in an unexpectedly negative manner.

I've talked about finding a special place as a harbor from the storm of life. I have yet to find this place. Supposedly, one such place is within yourself. Sometimes, it is difficult to look within for such a haven when your life has become an unending turmoil and drama. I've chosen to downplay the more serious things going on in my life, because they would do nothing but depress everybody. Talking even to a close friend, I can see that he is more concerned with his financial plans to buy a house and how his stock options are coming along. He has chosen to close himself off from the despair that I have felt of late.

I'm not happy about how this month has begun, and I know that I have been plumbing the darker side of the human psyche of late. Let's see here, there was anger, lust, envy, pride, avarice... Wait, aren't those some of the deadly sins? If only I had written about someone stuffing themselves and being apathetically lazy.

This fascination with the unhappier feelings one person can feel is probably leaving me open and more sensitive to these emotions. I can't say that I would willingly ignore these emotions, thereby living in a narcissitic and empty headed manner. Such a life doesn't exist, and I don't think I could give myself a lobotomy anyway. Lobotomoies aside, we can't live without these emotions, they are a part of living a healthy, connected life in this world. I suppose how we choose to let them affect us is a better indication of how we live our lives.

Perhaps I should consider this the beginning of my new year, forget what has happened in the past month and enjoy what comes to me from this point on. Yes, a fresh new start is what I will do. In this, the year of the dog, I wish you all the best as my cultural heritage would wish for you: Be happy, feel lucky, live long and propsper. (Sorry, just couldn't avoid the obvious Star Trek reference.)