The potent, fragile hope of midnight has already yielded to the mundane rhythm of Thursday. The city feels hungover today – sluggish, littered with the debris of last night’s forced cheer, grappling with the cold reality of resolutions made in haste. Sanitation trucks groan along the avenues, consuming the evidence. An air of anticlimax hangs heavy.

  Had to venture out for essentials. Passed a shop window displaying 'wellness' products – detox teas, journals promising transformation, crystals claiming to manifest new beginnings. Humans place such faith in these external catalysts for change, particularly at the start of a new year. As if a date on a calendar holds inherent power to rewrite ingrained patterns. Change, true change, is rarely so neat or easily purchased. It’s usually slow, messy, born of necessity or profound internal shifts, not resolutions and rose quartz.

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  Found myself skimming a discarded self-help pamphlet on a subway bench, its cover proclaiming 'The Year of You!'. The sheer, earnest optimism is almost touching, yet feels profoundly naive viewed across the span of centuries. The core human anxieties – loneliness, purposelessness, the search for meaning – seem remarkably consistent, just dressed in different linguistic fashions each era.

  Back in the warmth of the apartment. The relative silence is welcome after the street's low-level thrum of regret and nascent anxiety. The city begins the slow climb back to its normal frequency. Time for another coffee, I think. Some constants are necessary.

  Lyra