Is it a new year? Is it?
I don't think people are really accepting that it is in the middle of the night in the middle of winter that we decide to begin anew. As if all we ever were is now behind us, looking back, and all we have ever hoped to be is new and bright before us, straight ahead. All that, just in a split second, is changed.
Is it though?
Nothing has really changed in the transition from 2013 to 2014. Just right then. In that exact second from 11:59 PM Tuesday night to 12:00 AM Wednesday morning. Stuff changed in November. Stuff changed in May. Gradually, of course. Stuff changed in pieces, in footfalls, in moments taped together into notebooks of forgotten memory, shaping a person into who they are by the to-do lists they've etched onto sticky notes still stuck at the wall beside their beds -- that's how stuff changed.
We arbitrarily decide that NOW, midnight, January 1st, we are going to reflect and plan ahead. In the middle of the night, in the middle of winter. Most of us drunk. Now.
There's something just a little off about that, you know?
And of course it gives us hope in the dreary dark of our ages, in the streetlights shining down upon our dust, promising a sun rising and a spring coming but promising it all too early. It gives us something to think about when the cold crowds in and when the waters overflow. It forces us to answer exactly who we are and what we are doing. It forces us to straighten our backs and steady our plows and look towards the horizon.
What next?
Those of us asking ourselves that every day - every day when the sun comes up to watch it rise in absolute awe at the ongoing continuum of life, at the raw and steady beating heart within the universe, to know it is not in us to know what each day brings - we do not pretend to see when we look ahead. We see colors and we hear voices but we live solidly on the line of time and do not dare step forward.
What is a year? A number changing on television one night? A single solitary moment in which what all had been now never will be? Does it all collectively bunch together and get thrown away and replaced all at once? An entire year?
What if each day was a new year? What if each sunrise held suspense, held possibility, held the chance at beginning anew? If we stopped taking for granted the passing of our time here, if we held each moment lived in an ephemeral state of awe, if we captured our lives over and over, each passing face photographed into film, if each day were an entire year... would we live it?
[Just a thought.]
I don't think people are really accepting that it is in the middle of the night in the middle of winter that we decide to begin anew. As if all we ever were is now behind us, looking back, and all we have ever hoped to be is new and bright before us, straight ahead. All that, just in a split second, is changed.
Is it though?
Nothing has really changed in the transition from 2013 to 2014. Just right then. In that exact second from 11:59 PM Tuesday night to 12:00 AM Wednesday morning. Stuff changed in November. Stuff changed in May. Gradually, of course. Stuff changed in pieces, in footfalls, in moments taped together into notebooks of forgotten memory, shaping a person into who they are by the to-do lists they've etched onto sticky notes still stuck at the wall beside their beds -- that's how stuff changed.
We arbitrarily decide that NOW, midnight, January 1st, we are going to reflect and plan ahead. In the middle of the night, in the middle of winter. Most of us drunk. Now.
There's something just a little off about that, you know?
And of course it gives us hope in the dreary dark of our ages, in the streetlights shining down upon our dust, promising a sun rising and a spring coming but promising it all too early. It gives us something to think about when the cold crowds in and when the waters overflow. It forces us to answer exactly who we are and what we are doing. It forces us to straighten our backs and steady our plows and look towards the horizon.
What next?
Those of us asking ourselves that every day - every day when the sun comes up to watch it rise in absolute awe at the ongoing continuum of life, at the raw and steady beating heart within the universe, to know it is not in us to know what each day brings - we do not pretend to see when we look ahead. We see colors and we hear voices but we live solidly on the line of time and do not dare step forward.
What is a year? A number changing on television one night? A single solitary moment in which what all had been now never will be? Does it all collectively bunch together and get thrown away and replaced all at once? An entire year?
What if each day was a new year? What if each sunrise held suspense, held possibility, held the chance at beginning anew? If we stopped taking for granted the passing of our time here, if we held each moment lived in an ephemeral state of awe, if we captured our lives over and over, each passing face photographed into film, if each day were an entire year... would we live it?
[Just a thought.]
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