Time and New Year
by: Fr. Rannie Aquino
A Bingo establishment recently opened in my hometown, Tuguegarao City, announcing that patrons were welcome to play for “25 hours”. Some laughed it off as a silly error; others thought of it as a way of saying that they would keep open way beyond all other establishments. I asked myself what the matter might be with 25 hours. Of course maintaining a day of 25 hours would put one in the very least one hour out of sync with the rest of humanity, but that makes of a 25-hour day neither an impossibility nor a completely impracticable solution. There is, of course, the astronomical fact that the earth’s rotation is somewhere around 24 hours, and its revolution, anywhere between 365 and 366 days, but these facts are relevant only because we choose to order our affairs according to these astronomical regularities. But we do have some tolerance for alternative ways of reckoning. The so-called Chinese New Year, actually the “new year” that goes by lunar counting, does not coincide with January 1, and its festive celebration in the Philippines is catching on. The same thing is true of a year. What happens on the first day of January is that we change calendars, adjust our watches, and change diaries and logbooks -- all of them, measuring devices. But certainly, a year is not a measuring device!
by: Fr. Rannie Aquino
A Bingo establishment recently opened in my hometown, Tuguegarao City, announcing that patrons were welcome to play for “25 hours”. Some laughed it off as a silly error; others thought of it as a way of saying that they would keep open way beyond all other establishments. I asked myself what the matter might be with 25 hours. Of course maintaining a day of 25 hours would put one in the very least one hour out of sync with the rest of humanity, but that makes of a 25-hour day neither an impossibility nor a completely impracticable solution. There is, of course, the astronomical fact that the earth’s rotation is somewhere around 24 hours, and its revolution, anywhere between 365 and 366 days, but these facts are relevant only because we choose to order our affairs according to these astronomical regularities. But we do have some tolerance for alternative ways of reckoning. The so-called Chinese New Year, actually the “new year” that goes by lunar counting, does not coincide with January 1, and its festive celebration in the Philippines is catching on. The same thing is true of a year. What happens on the first day of January is that we change calendars, adjust our watches, and change diaries and logbooks -- all of them, measuring devices. But certainly, a year is not a measuring device!
Fundamentally, time is possibility. The possibility of writing the line after this is what “future” fundamentally means and my immersion in writing this column is my present. A new year is then not a gift of calendar-dates. It is the gift of possibility, the openness of a range of projects, including the project of not undertaking any at all, except that this is an option clearly not worthy of us, human persons. And that is perhaps what is most deleterious about an exaggerated reliance on horoscopes and feng-shui, because the hidden assumption in all these is that the future is “already out there” though as yet concealed. But if we take the future seriously as possibility and project, then we will be less concerned with divining its secrets and more concerned about what we can make of ourselves and bring to pass. A year may be challenging, in that occurrences beyond human control pose unusual or out-of-the-ordinary hurdles, but a year is never “bad”. It is we who become either better people or worse in the process of realizing the project that each is unto himself. “Good” and “bad” are principally attributes of what we do, and what we are as a result of what we do! There really is no such thing as a “good” year nor is there any rational basis for dreading a “bad” year!
The present is constituted by its assimilation of the past and its response to the offer of novelty. A denial of the past is silly, and a suppression of the past is an attempt to live a lie. Present occasions are inevitably constituted in large measure by past occasions, especially those of the immediate past. This is what gives coherence to human existence, both being-with others and world and the times we live in. Gratitude for the past should always accompany the excitement for the new year for in its “objective immortality” the past lingers on in each new occasion that comes about, not completely reproduced, to be sure, but present nevertheless. It is the enduring presence of the past, and its continuing relevance! This is why self-righteous leaders who denigrate the past or deny it any significance whatsoever eventually find themselves dangling from the noose of their own folly. Even the Messiah was not as messianic in proclaiming newness that was a total rejection of the past. He revealed himself as the “fulfillment” of the past. The well-meant advice to live the present moment cannot mean anything more than that it is pointless to be obsessed, even neurotically in a perpetual state of near-panic with what might come to pass, or to be fixated in what has been, but the fact is that the density of the human present (which is not the fleeting instant Aristotle made of it) is always retention, and therefore remembering, history and reminiscence as it is pro-tention (hence anticipation, projection, and hope!
Novelty consists in that range of values that we, with varying levels of consciousness and deliberateness, realize, but always, there is the lure of what is orderly, intelligent, benevolent and beautiful. Not all will respond favorably to this lure—that is the Divine element in the universe —but thankfully, many will. And the possibilities of being wiser, nobler, kinder, more caring and tender are not dependent on whether we are spared the vagaries of nature and its caprice. In fact, adversity has a distinctive way of summoning us to respond with precisely these ennobling values and virtues. This is what makes a new year new: the new persons we can become.
And thus, the narrative of each life continues, and with each page of the diary (real or metaphorical) filled out, the narrative’s plot becomes richer, sometimes more convoluted, meandering and puzzling, but as rich a narrative as life can be rich. And so a new year is really about new scenes and acts in that monumental emplotment that being human is and in which forging human identity consists. It is not time that is new. It is we who can be new!
The present is constituted by its assimilation of the past and its response to the offer of novelty. A denial of the past is silly, and a suppression of the past is an attempt to live a lie. Present occasions are inevitably constituted in large measure by past occasions, especially those of the immediate past. This is what gives coherence to human existence, both being-with others and world and the times we live in. Gratitude for the past should always accompany the excitement for the new year for in its “objective immortality” the past lingers on in each new occasion that comes about, not completely reproduced, to be sure, but present nevertheless. It is the enduring presence of the past, and its continuing relevance! This is why self-righteous leaders who denigrate the past or deny it any significance whatsoever eventually find themselves dangling from the noose of their own folly. Even the Messiah was not as messianic in proclaiming newness that was a total rejection of the past. He revealed himself as the “fulfillment” of the past. The well-meant advice to live the present moment cannot mean anything more than that it is pointless to be obsessed, even neurotically in a perpetual state of near-panic with what might come to pass, or to be fixated in what has been, but the fact is that the density of the human present (which is not the fleeting instant Aristotle made of it) is always retention, and therefore remembering, history and reminiscence as it is pro-tention (hence anticipation, projection, and hope!
Novelty consists in that range of values that we, with varying levels of consciousness and deliberateness, realize, but always, there is the lure of what is orderly, intelligent, benevolent and beautiful. Not all will respond favorably to this lure—that is the Divine element in the universe —but thankfully, many will. And the possibilities of being wiser, nobler, kinder, more caring and tender are not dependent on whether we are spared the vagaries of nature and its caprice. In fact, adversity has a distinctive way of summoning us to respond with precisely these ennobling values and virtues. This is what makes a new year new: the new persons we can become.
And thus, the narrative of each life continues, and with each page of the diary (real or metaphorical) filled out, the narrative’s plot becomes richer, sometimes more convoluted, meandering and puzzling, but as rich a narrative as life can be rich. And so a new year is really about new scenes and acts in that monumental emplotment that being human is and in which forging human identity consists. It is not time that is new. It is we who can be new!