New year, old me(mories)
Not very long ago, probably 20 years or so, a new year meant something. It provided a lot of us with exactly what we needed: that untold aroma of a second chance, thus giving birth to several stillborns of a broken promise. I’ll be better this year. I’ll behave and try to succeed more and fail less. I’ll be fitter and stronger and smarter and wiser. I’ll do everything within my power to push myself to the limits of goodness, if not greatness. I’ll leave no stone unturned in embracing jargons that actually mean something. I’ll just keep at it and simple forgive the previous year for doing all the unmentionable things to me. Janus might have two heads but at least one faced the future so, yes, I too shall focus on what’s coming next, and not expend my energy on what has already happened. Fuck the past.
In other words, happy new year.
Fast forward to 2023. I neither feel anything new in the change in calendar nor do I have delusions of continuous improvement in my self. Morever, since we don’t write much, and computers take care of the dates, we don’t come face to the face with the difference between 2022 and 2023. We’ve evolved in ways we don’t fully comprehend. I don’t know about you but I have.
For lack of better understanding, I’ve finally come to accept time for what it really is: a human manipulation to control things around us that can’t possibly be controlled. The sun doesn’t care about your stupid Swiss watch. So, in a way, I’ve synced my cycle of nuance with what is abject and real: my problems. When you say you’ve had an awesome year, what you mean to say is that you’ve had a relatively less problematic year. You didn’t sprain your ankle badly or lose your parent or defaulted on your payments. Conversely, you made a lot of money on cryptocurrency and are now wondering what to do with the surplus in your many bank accounts. Net-net, you won. It’s the small wins that look big because you are a petty creature of—yes, you guessed it right—time.
We are an instrument of time, not the other way around. The days of the week don’t mean anything and neither do the months on roll. What matters, for now, is the fact that you aren’t dead yet. You are real and your story is unique despite its many similarities with millions of people who walked before you. Nothing else matters. When shove changes to push again, your world doesn’t owe you anything at all. It exists and that is more than a bargain. We are constantly moving along with all the other elements—day in and day out, week in and week out, month in and month out.
Boom!
A year passes by and before we realize it, years have passed by and we are left with greys in our crown that have nothing to do with our overexposure to tubelight, or dark circles that contrast with the light from our phone screens. And if somebody asks what happened, you smugly reply, “Life.” Not realizing at that instance that your memory is too deceptive and your integrity is too compromised to genuinely know what happened to you in the past. Your memories are like those squares on a Rubik’s cube, except that the colours are fast changing as you keep moving them around, utterly clueless but amazingly hopeful. Your brain is not being challenged here but your sense of certainty is. And a year, as a timeframe, is certain.
No duality there.
One year is one year.
No wonder our species celebrate new year’s eve wilder than any other day. One can imagine the respite a human feels when the burden of carrying a year is removed, only to be replaced with the expectations of a new year. It cuts through all peoples, societies and cultures. That burning desire to start afresh; some people take a dip in the holy Ganga hoping to renew themselves, while others list out NY Resolutions. But all things new are not scary. A new year can also be like you and me: underwhelmingly promising. Whether we are working out of office or home, we have it in us to turn tables. What’s the worst that can happen anyway? Dejection? Well, our generation has been dejected for so long that we’ve started taking pride in the labels (Boomer/Millennial/Gen Z) they threw at us out of spite. We might just remove the first two annoying letters from impossible. Who knows? Just a matter of time.
In other words, happy new year.