千言和万语随浮云掠过

and day 1 of 2006 has passed. and if it's any indication of how it is going to be, then 2006 will be a hard year. but this is not really the point of the post.

i'm up at 4am cos my head refuses to accept that it's back in chicago. and as such, i was looking at various blogs, and realise that new year is such an odd time to be. because yes it is entirely arbitrary, the last day of 2005 and the first day of 2006 is not seperate by any threshold beyond the purely imaginary. in the long run, it makes no difference whatsoever. so why do we even bother?

since time isn't defined as discrete and finite units (or can it? quantum physics anyone?), we come up with arbitrary thresholds to give it a certain significance. and what is more significant than the passing of a year? the earth has once again, for more than 4.57billion times, completed its circuit around the sun. but then again, who determines this arbitrary starting point of the earth's journey anyways? it is maybe we all buy into it cos it's convenient.

because deep down we all want to believe that there is a difference. that there will be great years to come after bad ones, that each year brings with it challenges to be overcome, new people to meet and new experiences to enrich our lives. coming from a country where the seasons didn't matter to one where it did, it becomes just that much more obvious why the passing of the years is significant. because life as we know it has become so much intuned with the passing of the years.