I’m sure I’m not the only one who cannot shake the association of September with the start of the academic year. It’s not just because of the ubiquitous back-to-school adverts and signs in shop windows. All those years of education have ingrained the rhythms of terms and holidays into our minds.  The academic year is just one of several cycles by which we mark our lives. Their rhythms follow the beat of two different drums, one natural, one human. The other major cultural cycle is the calendar year, with its associated end-of-year reckoning and looking ahead to the one to come, whether we make resolutions or not. Religions and states pin on to these their own commemorations, times for feasting and fasting, celebration and penance. Then there are the natural cycles of the seasons, of harvests, of solstices, punctuated by the anniversaries of our own births.  Some people profess to be indifferent to all of this. Most of us, however, find it helpful to use at least some of them as reference points to give structure to our lives, providing moments of reflection, review, renewal and resolution. September is a good example of how the natural and cultural cycles work together. Summer has ended, and with it the time of year when we most typically relax and try to enjoy ourselves. The shortening of the days seems to be a message to start getting serious again. So perhaps it’s no coincidence this is the traditional time to start a course of learning, formal or informal.  The academic year also brings together two contrasting features of the movement of life: the linear and the cyclical. The linear is one of progress: one year older, one school year higher. The cyclical is one of endless repetition: the phases of the moon, the four seasons, the perpetual revolving door of students.  Tuning into the cycles of culture and nature can act as a corrective. It reminds us that nothing is for ever  It seems to me that living well requires us to give due weight to the natural and the cultural, the cyclical and the linear. We need some sense of the linear, because life is finite, with a beginning and an end, and each stage on the journey requires something different from us. Also, if we don’t keep moving, life loses its vitality. Heeding September’s call to learning is one way of keeping our minds’ cogs turning.  However, we can become too fixated on the idea of progress and self-development, as though our lives were projects that we could eventually complete and perfect. That’s when tuning into the cycles of culture and nature can act as a corrective. It reminds us that nothing is for ever, and that just as the sun sets, the moon wanes and the leaves fall, we will also all too soon fade away. Our journey is not one with a final destination as its goal, but one that returns us to the nothing from where we started. The course of life is circular, not straight: the linear is ultimately also the cyclical.  Appreciating that potentially grim truth is part of growing up. For children, the academic year is primarily about the linear, and rightly so. A child, even an adolescent, changes so much from one September to the next. Every new school year brings a new progression in year group, a step up the playground pecking order. When we’re adults, however, the cyclical aspect of the academic year becomes more evident. For anyone who works in education, it’s another set of first-years, another dining hall full of kids to feed. Everyone’s place in the bigger, repetitive picture becomes clearer. Seeing the next generation head off to school reminds us that, just as they have taken our place, others will take theirs. That, of course, is also a reminder that we will take the place of those older than us, and ultimately follow them to the grave.  If that sounds gloomy rather than simply a matter of fact, it’s in part because our culture has become so fixated on the ideals of progress and development that it has lost touch with the cyclical. We pursue higher GDP, improved life satisfaction scores, greater fitness, better health. September is a good time to remind ourselves that while any such progress is welcome, the main point is to be living well now, not for the hope of a better life to come. The purpose of learning new things or practising old ones is so that, if we are lucky enough to see another September, we will do so enriched; and if we are not, our final lap of honour was a trip worth taking.
We focus on the new year as the time for bold thinking and fresh starts. But when we consider what we know and may learn, next month seems a better candidate