137 Monday Musings - The tyranny of year ends

137 - The tyranny of year ends

In a lot of ways, each year that passes by is unique, bejewelled by the events that decorate it, by the footprints that one leaaves on it and what it leaves on us - and yet in a lot of ways each year is also similar to all others - in that each one finally, ultimately and permanently passes. After a few decades, years that have gone by become faceless, similar and difficult to distinguish from one another. When they begin, they are pregnent with possibilities and when they end they are one among the many, like faces in the crowd that we know exist but cannot make out in the blur. The year gets born in January and dies in december, never to be recovered, never to be distilled as something unique, remembered only through random events. Do i really remember 1988 as distinct from 1989 or any two years of my life? Can i really demarcate what began in 2001 and ended with it?  Do we really plan life year by year - If yes, i salute the methodical in us and if no, then what is the brohuha in the end of 2011 and the beginning of 2012!

Sometimes i believe, that the end and the beginning of another year is such an overrated event. In taking stock of the year, the way it will be done the whole of this week, i get an impression that every year is a project, which has to be accounted for at the end of the measuring period. In measuring time as a linear construct, wtih a beginning and an end, so much angst and stress gets generated in the pursuit of salvaging what lies between the beginning and the end. I wish there was a better measure of time, something that leaves more to celebrate and less to regret. Yes, i want to make the best of the time i have got, pack in the most in the suitcase i am given, but i want to do it at my will, my pace and my comfort - not with the sword of damocles that hangs on my neck, not under duress and pressure. Yes i understand that fulfillment will come at making every moment worthy, but sometimes fulfillment also comes in going slow, in less, in moderation and in thoughtfullness, rather than a mindless frenzy for more. I love driving slow so that i can see and enjoy the countryside. I want to experience the year as my muse, not as a tyrant.

So yes, this is my last musing for 2011. I should have mused more often than i managed, i missed many mondays and i missed many experiences, insights and thoughts that should have converted themselves into cogent and coherent musings. Many of them are permanently lost, in a way many died untimely for want of adequate intellectual and emotional noursihment, and yet i would want to believe many are just hibernating - waiting for the right conditions to spring to life. Going by the xperience of the years gone by, I doubt i will remember 2011 as a unique year with an unique identity, despite many audacious attempts at doing something new, but i will definitely be at peace with myself in the wisdom, that the world has not come to an end. Its just a meausre, that has its moment of glory, but at the end of it all, its just a measure of time, not the meausre of life.

And that still rocks.

Guru