My Year of Quitting: Experiments for a New Cultural Technique

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Dare to change. The new year is still young, hope is fresh. The good resolutions unspent. “All good resolutions have something fatal. They are always made too soon,” wrote Oscar Wilde, half jokingly, half realistically. They say that New Year’s resolutions are usually over by mid-January. A pity really, since it’s the hopeful time of year when half the world wants to become better people, as if by secret command. I have long since returned to the ritual after a good resolution crisis, I have made some again. The most important one: finding lighthouses and ways out of the great crisis of orientation and truth that burdens us all.

After all, we humans are the only living beings on this earth who have the privilege of being able to change. Man is the animal that practices, the philosopher Peter Sloterdijk once said, meaning that good intentions succeed when we practise the change well, repeat it and slowly integrate it into our new everyday life. Of course, the ritual also includes critical evaluation and, if necessary, honest admission when things have not worked out.

Why should it not work to change? I have planned various change experiments for the year 2022. Mostly, today it’s about changing a behaviour that we like somewhere but is not good for us, that has more disadvantages than advantages in the long run, that affects our lives or all of our lives, if not even endangers them. Adding too much nicotine, alcohol or sugar to the body are probably the top three habits that people in the West would like to end. (For some, Comirnaty mRNA is now one of them).

The individual experiments last one month each

My year of quitting: walking clears the mind, walking inspires: I think up the experiments of quitting on coastal walks along Ireland’s Atlantic, like these days at Pipers Point with a view of the Ardnakinna lighthouse (photo above): The individual experiments, I have decided, will always last a month, and anyone who wants to can join in: One month without plastic, one month without shopping, one month without a car, one month without … these could be experiments.

The overdue paradigm shift in our behaviour (for example, switching from yes to no mode) has been on my mind for years. Now the esteemed sociologist Harald Welzer has written an inspiring book on the subject. He pleads for a new cultural technique of quitting as a way to the good life. (Harald Welzer: Nachruf auf mich selbst. 2021, available here from online social bookseller Buch7).

My experiments in quitting will begin after a Dry January in early February here on Irelandnews. Join in the fun and your own suggestions are welcome.

PS: Best wishes once again to all readers for a successful 2022: May it be lighter, more relaxed, happier and more light-hearted.