We are taken by surprise to note that the year is almost over, and yet another year is about to begin. Even before we could really become aware of this fact, out feet are on the new year, and many of the promises that we had made the previous new year day are yet to be realised; true enough, we have even forgotten what promises we had made. Time waits for no one, and it surely does not pause; it is not like a DVD film I am watching, that I can pause for a while to savor the beauty of the scene, nor can I "rewind" the scene to take note of the details I had failed to pay attention to the previous time. If only we had that privilege to do with time what we do either in memory or in a recorded film, then things might be very different. But for the most part we should be happy that time does not wait for any one, or else we may have too many thing to complain about, and may even curse our fate for asking for the time that does not move at its own pace.
The beauty with time is that you don't need to exert to flow with the current of time; it takes you by force, whether you like it or not. But today I would like to remember those people for whom time is a fierce enemy. I would like to recall to mind what a few fractions of a second could be for a rocket launcher; a few minutes for the one who is one the verge of death, a few hours for the one who is at the guillotene; a few days to a cancer patient. Time is not a pleasant thing that these people can savor, but is what they would like to forget. It is too frightening to think that time sometimes runs short. Christopher Marlowe in his beautiful play 'Doctor Faustus' talks about what time means to Faustus who had sold his soul to Satan in order to gain all worldly wisdom; when it is time, he is on his knees pleading for a few hours, a few minutes or at least a few seconds...
Concerning the differences in perspectives between the east and the west, it is said that the western philosophy looks at reality in a linear fashion, while the east looks at it as a cyclic, and that makes a lot of difference. We have even depicted this idea pictorially, showing a snake eating its tail. The idiom may not be very appetising, but the idea is there for us to understand. Life continues without any beginning or an end; we enter into the cyclic process at one particular moment, and may disappear at another, but the process continues. Therefore the popular adage, what seems to be end is in fact the beginning, makes a lot of meaning. Every end is actually a beginning, and every beginning may also be an end. It is too hard to make a distinction as to which is the beginning and which is the end. In the cyclic process, there is no beginning and no end. It is so very beautiful to flow with the current, which is never ending.
The greatest healer, it is said, is the time, and if only we allow ourselves to be moulded and shaped by time, there would be hardly any scars. We may not need to carry psychological baggage year after year. Let the waters that flow constantly in the never-ending ocean of time wash away all the fatigue and tiredness we had been carrying upto this very day. Let us not carry anything further to the new year that is dawning. Let the worries and troubles, hatred and vengeance disappear in the waters of time. We are here to start the new year as a tabula rasa, a clean slate to start all thing anew. There is a thrill in starting things anew, because new hopes and new expectations can boost our confidence, and we may be in a better position to handle ourselves and the world around us.
As I stand at the threshold of yet another year, I place all that I had achieved and all that I had failed; let time be the best judge, who can tell me frankly and truly how my days had been spent. I have nothing to regret or complain, because I know if not any one else, at least time will take care of all my sincere efforts. I am here to present myself in the powerful yet gentle hands of time, for her to heal the wounds, strengthen the soft options, soften the hardness of heart, break the stubbornness, join the broken dreams, speak the unspeakable, kill the hatred and vengeance, and to be born as a new being as the sun begins to shine on me tomorrow. Every day brings in new hope, just as every new year brings in new hope that we have still some more time to hold ourselves accountable for the world that we live in, and maybe this day next year, we will be able to stand before time with a little more confidence that we are a little better than the last year!
