A clock ticking over from one year to the next is not astronomically significant; it is merely a convention. It is a significant event to a few people—accountants, mostly—and, as a consequence, to all worshipers of Mammon. As for the rest of us, it is no more than a milestone in the passage of time—a soon to be forgotten mossy relic by the side of the road carved with a number—and by itself it is hardly memorable at all.
But we can try to make it memorable, if we want to, by treating it as a marker for what came before. As to what will come next, you can count on me to always predict that it will be more of the same, plus a few surprises, pleasant or not, and in this prediction I am yet to be proven wrong. We can approach the task of making the annual time marker memorable with regret and trepidation or with gratitude and hope, and I choose the latter. The year ended with a significant, and quite unusual, expression of gratitude.
Continue reading...
