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Is there a difference between man-made time and natural time? I recently wrote an essay arguing against man-made time, which I believe is not the same as nature’s time. There is a rigidity to the time created by us. A sort of cultish awareness that keeps us dancing off-beat.

Today is the last day of 2013, and as I am rather sentimental, I cannot help it but pile on the drama. There will be no NYE’s party for me. I will be reading Thucydides (*cough* if I am able to stop watching Lark Rise to Candleford on Hulu). However, I have already started journeying back through the idea of ’13, and trying to imagine the idea of ’14.

I am also thinking of the silent beauty of nature’s time: the sunlight with its several tints of yellow, the moon and stars in their romance, the seasons with their flowers, fallen leaves, snow, and rains. What about life? Birth, the toddler years, the teenage years, the ridiculous and pompous phase known as adulthood, and the beautiful glorious days in old age when we are surely brought down to our knees and into freedom by finally admitting our nothingness? Perhaps all these times exist simultaneously but our senses are mute to perceiving them as such.

What I find most exciting about going into a new year is the surprises that I will encounter. Today being the last day of the year, there are only hours of surprises left in this year: I have already opened most of my “packages.” Most of them were amazing, some depressing, some I understood and used immediately, and some will only become meaningful to me in the new year.

Every year comes with several beautiful things. Yes, awful things as well, but I like to focus on what wonderful things there are and would be.

May the new year be a blessing to you.
May you remember that every day is a gift, and so is every breath.

—
J. A. Odartey