Why do we choose the symbols of the coming year?
Imagine an ancient woman. Ancestor. Possibly a priestess. A figurine of a totem animal – a graceful panther – adorns her wrist or rests on her chest. The need to decorate oneself and the world is the first sprout of art and civilization that goes beyond the pressing issues of survival, but then there was also a pragmatic component in it. It is an impulse to adorn oneself with meaning, choosing a symbol – an animal figurine – not only to ask for protection from its spirit, but hoping to appropriate its important qualities. According to the beliefs of the ancestors, symbols bring the desired development of events closer – or the desired development of oneself. And this desire to become faster, stronger, sharper – in a word, to become better – isn’t it the same thing that drives us in endless initiations of personal growth, feats of sports, social achievements? The elegance of a jaguar, the agility of a Ferrari stallion, the power of a Lamborghini bull: totems, as attributes of our success or symbols of our desires, can be found in the most exquisite objects, in the highest achievements of technical thought. The meaning and purpose of these symbols – to embody the qualities that attract us, and our desire to appropriate them – remain the same as in the distant past. And help to hope for a better future.