Time is a funny thing. It passes without us noticing it. Or, it is only when we reflect on the past time that we realize that time has in fact moved on. I deliberately do not say “moved forwards” because if time in fact moves in a direction is not something I know or claim to know. But time most certainly moves on. But this in itself is also disputed by the fact that if we do not reflect on time moving on it seems like time diminishes its dynamic property. I am always brought to these musings in the festive season. December always feels like one long festive month in my country of South Africa. People look forward to the December vacation throughout the year. It is always more of less the same sentiment: Oh, for December we are doing/going to XYZ. It is almost as if people forget about time until December. Or, turning it around again, throughout the year people are aware of the passing of time and in the month of December time seizes to have meaning. For December is the present moment, the preceding eleven months is the past and the coming months are merely a fleeting memory those who are sober enough facilitate for a moment.
I have bad memories of the festive times. Nothing bad happened. There is no loved one who passed away, there is no bad “thing” that happened. It is merely a period in which I remember my past. Nostalgia. The word smells of certain memories. Where some people might be less aware of time passing in the month of December, I for some reason get even more aware of the passing of time. It is a month in which I always feel a melancholic longing for times that passed and even times that passed when I was not yet. Nostalgia for the past. Or, as philosopher Fredric Jameson puts it, nostalgia for the present. It is not like I am longing for the past, but rather that I am longing for the past with the present in mind. It is not like we want to go back in time, rather we want to experience the past today. How paradoxical but true. We never really miss the past, we mostly miss the past from the present. Or, we want the past now.
And here I am. Writing on the 1st day of the new year about how I miss the past in the present. Almost as if I cannot “climb out” of the past into the present, perpetually looking backward but almost feet planted in the present. Not wholly in the present, and not in the past. What about the future? What can one gain from turning away from the past and turning to the future? This leads me to another interesting thought: why is it that we always celebrate days like New Years and Christmas? Yes, there are historical reasons, and there are cultural reasons, but these are wholly arbitrary. I mean, the end of the year for half of the world is in winter, the other half in summer. What is the link? Nothing. We can think of people celebrating the “new year” when the summer begins. But this will throw capitalism a curveball because it cannot market the new year at the same time throughout the world. In any case, the arbitrary nature of these celebrations leads me to a weird thought: we wait for these “celebration days” as if they are carrots in front of us dangling to lure us. We can never really reach them (think: next year is a new year again!) and when we reach them, they are already in the past. How paradoxical. We long actually then for the future in the present. And if we can throw in some of my (mis)readings of Jacques Lacan and Freud, this is what our present times love: empty desires that will always be deferred. When we “catch” a desire, it hops onto something else. Our desire for the present is always deferred. What a depressing thought.
I hope that you enjoyed the festive season. It is the new year, and we need to look forward! Again, until the festive season strikes us again. My end of the year was something of a busy weird time. I did not spend enough time “with myself”. Weddings, festive season, friends, family, too much to eat, too much to drink. You might be familiar with this weird mixture of indulgence and reminiscing. It is also a time where I am so aware of our consumeristic nature. It makes me want to turn away for a moment. To sit in the woods and listen to the birds and animals doing their thing. I do not like the idea of endless gifts made from plastic that will end up in the trash, I do not like the idea of too much food on the table. (Too much drinking helps with “accepting” the idea that you cannot distance yourself too much from family. The idea of being rejected by family frightens me as much as the way we destroy our sanity with over-consuming.) Maybe you feel like this too, maybe not. I hope that you can reflect on the previous year and that you have good “vibes” for 2022! Be safe, and happy new year.