The Earth has completed another orbit around the Sun. Our planet is doing that at roughly 100,000 kilometers per hour, which is over 20 times faster than the fastest bullet humans have ever produced. (Meanwhile, our solar system is orbiting the center of our galaxy at almost eight times the speed our planet is orbiting the sun. And that pales in comparison with the speed our galaxy is hurtling through space — at over 2 million kilometers per hour.)
I don’t pretend to know what that means. But it’s a comforting New Year message for those who think that they haven’t gone anywhere in 2015. You have been travelling constantly, and at a speed nobody can really comprehend. It’s also my message to those who assume that “nothing’s changed.” Well, a lot has changed, even though you might feel stuck in relation to the ground and the immobile daily scenery. We are so far away from where we were even a second ago. Since you read the first paragraph of this column you have traveled the equivalent of several times around the Earth.
Physicists say we live in super slow-motion. We are like ants crawling on a roller-coaster at full throttle, oblivious to its dizzying speed and the excited screams of its riders. We have evolution to thank for our smallness and insignificance. I mean, if we were large enough to experience the breakneck speed, we wouldn’t be able to think, would we? Riding a roller-coaster do we think, “Millions are starving in Africa, so I’ll devote myself to changing that,” or rather, “No. Holy crap. No, not again. No, no, no.”?
I’m not going down that spiritual or religious road, however. To me, New Year is about fun, drinking, partying and giving and receiving gifts. It makes me wonder, though. Why are people in such a generous, forgiving mood at this time? If it’s genuinely good to forgive, why can’t we do it all year long? If it’s good to give and to share, why don’t we make it a permanent habit? Is the New Year, and other festivals for that matter, a time when we simply underscore our biggest human flaw — our inability to constantly do something good?
Some say that being good, generous or altruistic all the time would weaken the species. Don’t laugh. This school of thought has a point. Living in a perfect world can actually harm evolutionary progress, goes the theory. As a species we need adversity in order to build our strength and our fitness to survive. Simply put, too much giving, sharing and forgiving would weaken humankind over the generations.
Despite harboring skepticism, I understand this theory has merits. Yet most of all, in a year made up of 365 days of festivals, the fun would quickly give way to boredom. If our bosses smiled every time they saw us or grabbed a karaoke microphone every day, we would surely come up with “special occasions” on which they barked at us the whole day so we felt revitalized. If we had to exchange gifts every day of the year, we’d likely invent a “back-stabbing” festival to relieve the tedium.
All in all, the New Year is great. I could do without the songs, though. Why is it that songs about love, lies and betrayal can have different, ever-changing melodies but festival songs stay the same year in, year out? You may say that the same old tunes lend each festival its distinct identity and in the process remind us that it’s time to be happy. But still, why a “new” year but an “old” song?
Every new year gets old eventually, so an old song to greet a New Year may be philosophically appropriate. What is “new” and what is “old” anyway? One second into Jan. 1 and the “new” year is already ageing. What is truly and constantly “new” is us. Every second places us at a new spot in the universe. Everything we learn, read, watch and experience makes us a “new” person. The process may be slow, taking place in super slow-motion, but we are “renewing” continuously all the same.
To all those who are reading this column, I offer my sincere gratitude and best wishes. Whether they agree or disagree with what is written, each reader is precious to a writer. For you to find time to read this amid a hectic end-of-year schedule is something I appreciate very much. May every one of you enjoy great health, happiness and success during the next leg of our journey around the sun, at more than 100,000 kilometers per hour.
Happy New Year, everybody.
By Tulsathit Taptim
Tulsathit Taptim is a former editor-in-chief of the Nation, which is published in Thailand. — Ed.
