Trudging out of 2025...

Humans do this weird thing of finding or (in the apparent absence of any to find) making patterns in just about everything. We seem evolutionarily programmed to perceive patterns, to help us survive, to solve problems, and maybe most of all to relieve anxiety in a scary and getting scarier world.

The existence of time (duration) isn't in serious doubt but there's an awful lot we don't know about it. We've been imposing patterns on time since our ancestors noticed the cycle of stellar change above us. Some made pretty good sense - identifying a cycle of seasonal patterns based (although we didn't know it initially) on the orbital cycle of our planet around our sun allowed the development of agricuture, yay for the survival of humankind.

The planet we live on orbits the star that (captured it?/threw it off?) so far back our hominid brains can't seriously grasp it. The planet we live on spins, producing dark/light cycles we call 'days'. Certain materials release subatomic particles in a decay process at various rates. Humans can measure those things and map the patterns we impose on duration to their processes.

Universe, however, doesn't actually give a shit what we call our time-patterns, how we organize them, or what we think they're useful for. Our attempts to use phenomena we observe at some point in duration, to predict anything other than the particular process of the specific observed phenomenon are particularly laughable. ("Comet portends wrathful visitation of Invisible Asshole Beings!" is an old favorite.)

Objectively, the only difference between the day we call "December 31st" and the day we call "January 1st" is a matter of a few minutes' change in light/dark duration depending on which hemisphere the observer looks from. The fact that we increase an essentially random number by one as our pathetically imprecise 24-hour clocks tick from 12:00:00 to 12:00:01 (or is it from 11:59:59 to 12:00:00? There's still a debate about that...) means nothing of significance to Universe.

We have, at various times, mapped the single-integer increase of various ongoing counts of planetary orbit cycles at other times in the cycle, for reasons that ranged from functional ( "We can pretty much start planting when the duration of light exceeds that of darkness in a day cycle, let's call it a new 'year' then." ) to egotistical ( "Big Kahuna took over telling everyone what to do and looting from our collective wealth creation on THIS day, let's date our 'years' from this day to keep Big Kahuna happy." ) Not to mention the many attempts to perceive and impose super-cycles on duration based on astronomical observations and calculations ( "Our Smart Peeps say THIS is the day the next cycle of the Really Signficant Star Movements happens so that'll be the new 'year'." )

Birds gonna migrate based on what they perceive. Bears gonna wake up, sniff around and decide whether to go back to sleep or start foraging based on what they perceive. Snowdrops gonna start pushing a flowerscape through incredibly hard frozen ground based on the information stored in their DNA. None of them give a shit about our calendars. Punxsatawney Phil is just another human nod to the reality that all our duration-slicing and pattern-finding is, objectively, unreliable as hell for any actual predictive purpose.

So here we are on another December 31st, about to advance our particular random four-digit year number by another single integer.

Objectively, big whoop. However, being a human being who functions better using patterns to organize how I think about duration and its implications, this is traditionall a time to think about how I would like to function differently in future duration than I have been able to function in past duration.

Strictly speaking, I know perfectly well that "now" - the bit of duration I am actually experiencing - is the only place I can really make any difference. But it could be helpful to reflect on any patterns I can perceive in my responses to events that remain in memory storage of 'past' duration, and think about any ways I could potentially make choices that offer some likelihood of improving how I experience the uncertain 'future' duration. If only it were as easy as modfying a few lines of code...

But here goes, anyway:

I want to be quicker to recognize the bitchy voice of my jerkbrain inside my head and firmer in shutting it down when it tells me how unworthy, inadequate, weak, selfish, undisciplined, heedless or unrealistic I am being.

I want to apply more of my creativity to accepting and finding ways to optimize changes I can't control. (The older I get, the more important this one seems. You kids will find out.)

I want to take more risks in experimenting with self-change, and be willing to step out of my comfort zone more often.

I want to learn more about things and people I don't understand, and more about events and ideas that make me uncomfortable.

I want to be willing to re-evaluate past decisions that may have been made with too little information.

I want to learn more about the kind of love I think of as 'divine' - that is, not ego-based, transactional human attachments, but the perception, appreciation, and connection to the ineffable embodiment of life and its potential here and now.

I'm going to stop there. If I can manage even one of those things as I continue accumulating duration, it will be a worthy gift back to the source of all life.

The duration of individual experience is limited, often shockingly, usually unexpectedly so. I suppose we need that mistaken sense of permanence to allow ourselves to function in the uncertainty of duration, but it does sometimes blind us to the value of the only experience we really have - this time, this place, these beings.

For me, that would be today, here on DU, with all of you. Thank you for sharing duration, place, and existence! Words are wholly inadequate to express perceptions and feelings, but they're all I got.

Love ya, DU community.

pedantically,
Bright