We place so much emphasis on celebrating those last few moments of a year. That last final day is so important, because this year will never come again. The past is behind us, let us look forward into this brand new year that we have yet to screw up! A fresh slate, finally, the stink of 2011 was getting unbearable to be around.
But what makes the 31st of December that magical? If the Mayans had decided to finish the Calendar a day early, or to give February a few extra days (those stingy bastards), the New Year's would come a day later, or a day early. This essentially makes celebrating New Year's Eve completely arbitrary, because a calendar is based on the assumption that one can effectively quantify time. Time isn't a moving river, flowing on a linear scale, as people would have you believe. Clocks give us 24 hours in a day, and broken down into a second with every tick. But isn't the measure of a "second" really man-made? How can we define time as a ticking, moving entity when it has existed long before our planet has? Time isn't the thing that is passing, we are. Time doesn't exist in clocks or calenders, time exists in the growth of a child, in the wrinkles of a grandmother, in the changing leaves of a tree. We cannot celebrate the end of a cycle of "time", because it has never moved to begin with. As William Faulkner said, "Time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stop does time come to life."
To me, the belief in the the flow of time is the same as believing in religion. The Bible and the clock, both handiwork of men, created to explain what we did not understand. You might argue that the existence of day and night time surely means that time has to be moving in order for there to be a difference in the amount of time we receive sunlight. But the difference between day and night, of course, is simply caused by the rotation of the Earth; once again, we are the ones that are moving - not time. The very fact that we can simply declare Daylight Saving Time, to casually shift an hour forward or backwards, shows us the fickleness and flimsy nature of "time". If time can truly be measured, like a length or a weight could, we wouldn't be able to just announce that we'd take an extra hour here and there. Time zones present another issue for the argument for time. Two people standing on opposite sides of the globe are speaking on the telephone. They are in the exact same moment, and the guy in China has arrived in the new year, but the guy in America is physically denied from entering it, just because he's standing somewhere else? It was, once again, arbitrarily decided that US follows Asia as far as time zones go, so if once upon a time we decided that US should lead, then Americans would enter the new year first. Of course, quantifying time is a very essential tool, it gives us a reference point as we plan our days. However, to base our whole lives around the concept that a new calendar year means anything is just silly.
To me, the belief in the the flow of time is the same as believing in religion. The Bible and the clock, both handiwork of men, created to explain what we did not understand. You might argue that the existence of day and night time surely means that time has to be moving in order for there to be a difference in the amount of time we receive sunlight. But the difference between day and night, of course, is simply caused by the rotation of the Earth; once again, we are the ones that are moving - not time. The very fact that we can simply declare Daylight Saving Time, to casually shift an hour forward or backwards, shows us the fickleness and flimsy nature of "time". If time can truly be measured, like a length or a weight could, we wouldn't be able to just announce that we'd take an extra hour here and there. Time zones present another issue for the argument for time. Two people standing on opposite sides of the globe are speaking on the telephone. They are in the exact same moment, and the guy in China has arrived in the new year, but the guy in America is physically denied from entering it, just because he's standing somewhere else? It was, once again, arbitrarily decided that US follows Asia as far as time zones go, so if once upon a time we decided that US should lead, then Americans would enter the new year first. Of course, quantifying time is a very essential tool, it gives us a reference point as we plan our days. However, to base our whole lives around the concept that a new calendar year means anything is just silly.
But people do celebrate New Year's Eve, that's irrefutable. I believe they celebrate it because they need to. They need to believe that next year will be different, that all their promises to themselves will materialize and come to fruition through no effort of their own. They need to look forward after miserably screwing up everything they had in the previous years. People want to believe that this would be the year everything gets better, this will be the year they lose some weight, this will be the year they find true love, this year just has to be the year of all years. And then a year later, we're at another lame, noisy party, drunk. We're back where we started, making the same empty promises for our same empty lives.
Countdown! ... 4, 3, 2, 1 *Happy New Year!* And ... you're still a screw up.
This isn't meant to discourage people from trying to make a change in their lives. All I'm saying is, it's pointless to wait till a completely random date that ancient civilizations came up with to do it. Every moment brings new opportunities and challenges, it is only human laziness and procrastination, dabbled with naive hope, that makes us believe in the magic of a New Year. Go out there and make that change, don't let some silly Mayans stop you.
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