About this New Year's Thing . . .

Happy New Year, everyone. Yes, I know it’s January 13, but this is my first Writers Who Kill blog for the year, so it still feels like a new year. For those who make resolutions, there’s probably a 50/50 chance you’re keeping all of them. And for those who celebrate the new year using other calendars: Chinese, Hebrew, Hirji, and so many others I have no clue about, I don’t apologize for my celebration of the Gregorian calendar. Nor do I put my version of keeping track of time ahead of yours. It is, however, the way I see the world.

This “how I see the world” is important to understanding how deeply buried our preconceived notions can be. And when we turn to the author business of creating characters, we must also keep in mind that people act from their beliefs, regardless of facts.

Taking calendars as an example, embedded in my use of the Gregorian calendar is Christianity. In its original form, the current calendar year would be referred to as AD 2019. The AD comes from the medieval Latin anno Domini, meaning “in the year of our Lord”, referring to the year attributed to the birth of Jesus Christ. (Scholars don’t agree on when Jesus was born, but most think it was several years before the Gregorian calendar starts counting. The Gregorian Calendar is a modification of the earlier Julian calendar done to more accurately reflect leap years.)

Sometime during my lifetime, a movement occurred to secularize naming of years and change AD to CE, which stands for “Common Era.” Turns out, like many things “I know,” the actual timing of this movement is not as I remembered. The first reference may have been 1615 used by the astronomer Johannes Kepler. Scientists were the first adopters.

The Latin equivalent of anno Domini is ante Cristum natum (before the birth of Christ). Unlike the AD, which stuck, ADN did not, and many languages rejected the Latin and substituted the words in their own language. In English this became Before Christ, shortened to BC and occurring after the numerical date, so the year before AD 1 is 1 BC. Poor zero never got a chance to strut his stuff. BC, morphs to BCE (before Common Era) in the secularized version.

Yet even dressing up dates with the new CE and BCE tags, does not eliminate their Christian origins. The origins are obfuscated, but no less present. Scratch the surface the tiniest bit and the Christian origins sparkle beneath the clothing we’ve put on dates.

People and characters often hold truths that are not fact-based. My false recollection that the use of CE was introduced during my lifetime is a small, and probably inconsequential, example. But it does suggest we need to periodically question the basis of our understandings.

In discussing Trump’s Wall with someone of a more conservative persuasion than I hold, I referred to the first line in Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall”:

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,

I was told I had missed the whole point of the poem, which she claimed was contained in the last line:

“Good fences make good neighbors.”

And this illustrates our differences more clearly than I could have earlier articulated: my strong attachment to the poem’s first line, hers to its last. I argue context: the narrator does NOT agree with the “Good fences make good neighbors.” statement handed down from neighbor father to neighbor son, spoken reverently without reflection upon the rationale behind the saying or when it may or may not be justified.

That, of course, is my point of view and it fits my personality, I often challenge “truths” to test their limits. My math background makes me dig for the hidden assumptions that support the “facts.”

Others prefer to follow the well-worn path espoused by those before them. Testing these known truths is irrational and counterproductive.

The problem with unchallenged misunderstandings in ourselves or others is they become bedrock truths. I would have great difficulty thinking that today belongs to the year 5779 (Hebrew Calendar). Conceptually, I understand it’s just a different number system that mathematically maps calendar days one-to-one from my current system. No day is lost, none added. It’s a matter of convenience, I say, and ignore the cultural significance of the choice.

I often see errors in fact made by people espousing all shades of political views. When I have specific expertise (usually actuarial or financial), I’ll often try to provide a correct explanation. This reflection on the New Year and its cultural bias has made me realize maybe I should have a New Year’s resolution.

I hereby resolve to try to be more conscious of my inherent biases before touting my opinion.

But, I already know as soon as I enter the world of Facebook, I’m more likely to find the speck in your eye than the beam in mine. How long will your resolution last?

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James M. Jackson authors the Seamus McCree mystery series. Empty Promises, the fifth novel in the series—this one set in the deep woods of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula—is now available. You can sign up for his newsletter and find more information about Jim and his books at https://jamesmjackson.com.