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This year is rare: the Islamic New Year and the Solar New Year are very close together. The first of Muharram, the Islamic New Year, was December 29. The passing of the New Year is a special time of celebration, when people revel in being alive to see the passing of a New Year.
Yet, it is also a time of reflection: reflection over what we have done over the past year and how we will be different in the coming year. That is the basis of the New Year Resolution, when many people resolve to do something or be someone they were not the year before. It is natural to do such things during a transition, such as one year to the next.
So, let us all – as we toast (with or without alcohol) the New Year – reflect over how we have been in 2008 and resolve to be better people and make the world a better place in 2009.
And, may each and every one of you have a happy, healthy, safe, and prosperous New Year.
posted January 2, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Aslm Alkm All,
Well, this article is really touching in a rather special and yet rarely perceived way!! Let me attempt an elaboration.
Personally, I celebrate my birthday on the 1st of January each year, by the Gregorian calendar,…what most of us refer to as New Year’s Day.
The way I spend my “birthday” however, is a constant puzzle to most of those close to me, and indeed those who feel its double fun to ‘grow older and enjoy it at the same time!!’…as I once put it to a close colleague of mine.
I prefer to use the time for reflection. New year resolutions actually mean quite a thing to me, because of course I have to tally my deeds and misdeeds of the past year, and indeed try to find ways of tipping that balance, in my favour, over the coming year.
But the theological/ philosophical debate we once had some time back is ever fresh in my memory. One friend told me to “Get over the age/worry issue”, apparently is a girl/feminine thing. But he was aptly, and rightly so, reminded…(fortunately by one other than myself..)that as mortal beings, the mere passage of time has always terrorised our minds, to the extent that we have always sought ways to gauge/ measure time!!
None of us looks forward to death, however dire our living circumstances may be… in fact death usually reminds us to count whatever blessings we still enjoy in life, however small!!… yet, the passage of time is a constant reminder of our time-limited existence, and certain demise.
So, it has always puzzled me, being of such “blessed placement in the scales of time”, how we humans can rejoice, blaspheme, demean and humiliate ourselves (i reserve some caution here, and accord apologies to those that do not engage in some of the really despicable acts I have observed over the years as New Year ‘rituals’) while welcoming and urging on our “harbinger of doom!!”
Sure, most people justify these actions as “enjoying life”, “seeing the positive side of things”, etc, e.t.c… I’ve heard so many lame excuses.
The fact still remains that we humans created our own time gauges (aside those we were already amply blessed with) as a way to mark our expiry from the life of this world. How we turned round and started enjoying this same calamity, I constantly puzzle at the madness.
I remain open to correction, and seek the wise council of the community on this issue!