For me, the greatest and most touching of new year blessings and resolutions remains the one with which Nietzsche opens Book IV of The Gay Science (written January, 1882):
"Today, everybody permits themselves the expression of their dearest wish. Hence, I too shall say what it is that I most desire - what was the first thought to enter my heart this year and what shall be for me the reason, guarantee, and sweetness of my life henceforth: I want increasingly to learn to see as beautiful what is necessary in things, so that I may become one of those who makes things beautiful.
Amor fati - let that be my love from now on!
I do not want to wage war against that which is ugly; I do not want to accuse; I do not even want to judge those who judge. Looking away shall be my sole negation. For some day I wish to be one who says Yes to life as a total economy of the whole."
This is what the phrase torpedo the ark means to me: love fate; find pleasure in things as they are; don't judge; look away from that which offends one's taste, but nonetheless affirm everything (even the cockroach that obscenely scuttles across the floor, or lies on its back kicking its legs in the air).
Happy New Year to torpedophiles everywhere ...
Note: The above text by Nietzsche is a modified version of Walter Kaufmann's translation in The Gay Science, (Vintage Books, 1974), IV. 276.
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