When I was much, much younger, I welcomed the new year like most anyone else: With firecrackers, with noise and merriment. It was difficult to disregard the forceful habit of tradition.
As I turned older, I became disillusioned with all the wasted resources used in welcoming the new year, and so disenfranchised by economic hardship that I had no other option but to be austere on New Year's eve. Thinking about it, if we can collectively become disillusioned with tradition and economically disenfranchised, then we can altogether avoid the casualties and injuries that we foolishly incur when welcoming the new year. Alas, this is highly improbable in this archipelago of contradictions: Where else can you find, but in our poor country, people who perennially complain about the high costs of keeping body and soul together, but who buy deadly pyrotechnics to welcome the new year, spending enough to register a blip on the country's Gross Domestic Product and to keep the fireworks maker well-fed for another year? Or people who pride themselves on being the friendliest, most hospitable on the planet, but who mow down human beings by gunfire, mutilate and disembowel them, and either leave them rotting for flies to feast on, or bury them hurriedly in a mass grave using a payloader? It could only be here, or in some other country masquerading as a God-fearing nation.
I now welcome the new year with a mixture of cautious optimism, a dash of both anxiety and cynicism, but always with redeeming HOPE. The road ahead does not afford me the view of clear directions, it only shows me that lives and dreams are fragile and fleeting. The new year thrusts me into unknown territory, and makes me bow my head in humble, imploring prayer.
No comments:
Post a Comment