QUIT

The coaster
returns
to the platform.
Eyes bleary,
voice weary,
the operator croaks,
“All done, sir?”

“Again,”
I tell him.
“Again,
and this time
add another loop!”

Musings

I must be a New Year's resolution novice, but I'd never heard of Quitters Day until today. Observed annually on the second Friday of the new year, falling on January 10th in 2025, the Quitters Day tradition encourages those who have experienced early setbacks or stumbles to pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and get their resolutions back on track.

In Ancient Rome, the new year would coincide with the spring equinox. Full of enthusiasm for a new year, the Romans would start with the month of Maritus (March), named for the god of war because of the traditional Roman New Year's resolution to conquer even more of the world.

Aprilis (April) was the month of openings. Things that had closed for the winter opened back up again in Aprilis, most notably flowers, reminding the legionnaires to stop marching long enough to sniff some roses along the way.

Maius (May) and Junius (June) were named for the goddesses of agriculture and marriage respectively, forward-looking themes for forward-looking times of the year.

The Roman calendar then suffered from a dearth of creativity. Quintilis (July) through December (December) all just meant Month Five, Month Six, and Months Seven through Ten.

After December, the Romans stopped counting their months altogether. What later became January and February were originally just a bunch of cold days and long nights to endure before the next military campaigns could start.

That aligns with our experience of New Year's resolutions today. We start with ambitions to take on the world and end with shoulder shrugs. The data shows that by this time of the year, most resolutions have already been broken, but they don't have to stay that way.

Quitters Day gives us a chance to get back on our horses and catch up with the rest of our legion. The world isn't going to conquer itself.

Image

Check out Sir Richard Branson in today's image, created by feeding today's poem into the prompt box and doing a bit of in-painting on the resulting draft.

Does Sir Richard seem to care, or even to notice, that his one-man lizard-themed roller coaster has caught fire and is no longer attached to rickety wooden tracks that are falling apart as he rides over them? No, he's taking it all in, moment by moment, and having the time of his life! Way to go, Sir Richard.

AI sure loves Dutch angles, mangled hands, and tinted glasses that can't quite hide a figure's weirdly spaced eyes.

More Tomorrow.