New Year’s Eve is a tradition of hype

I RECEIVED and read many messages wishing me a happy new year. Many are like chain messages. The sender forwards them to all his/her contacts. The same message rotates like an unstoppable mutating virus, that eventually loses its significance.

It’s almost five years that I am no longer phased by going into another year. Since I was a child, I was made to believe that there was something mystical about to happen when the minute hand passed the hour of 12 on the clock at the stroke of midnight.

All that happened at midnight, every year, with religious monotony, was that people broke out into a wild, euphoric frenzy, popping Champagne and singing out in chorus the lyrics of Auld Lang Syne, even if they didn’t know words they mumbled the tune, just to be part of the crowd.

It is a time for enterprising restaurant and hotel managers to create the most extravagant and expensive experience for their rich clients to flaunt their wealth and witness the poor masses make merry from the comfort of their chairs on big screen TVs. Rookie journalists do their best to get the most whacky stories to enthuse their boring viewers looking for something new.

As I began to reflect on this spectacle, I realised it was merely another tradition of hype that we put so much time and effort into, and for what? I asked myself what’s so new about the year without a hint of cynicism?

Then the other questions followed: Are there really bad and good years, or do we merely label them as such?

My answer to these questions is that there are bad moments, sad moments, happy moments, hilarious moments, joyful moments, exciting moments and some rather unpleasant moments, but each moment is new and short-lived. One moment does not make a year, but all the moments, when added together, make up the year.

I try and live each day, one day at a time, one hour at a time and one moment at a time, because a year at a time, is way too long to wait for.

The day after New Year, will just be another new day, like today was, regardless of the year, and I look forward to it with gratitude.

ELLAPEN RAPITI | Cape Town