Happy 2010, everyone. The occasion gets on to you, doesn't it? Even if you don't want it to. Especially if you don't want it to. So here I am, at 204 am on Jan 2010, having the luxury to introspect on everything that went wrong with my life and the few things I did right.
I'm going to let you in on a lil secret. Every New Year's Eve since 2003, I assess my writing skills and ask myself: "Am I still on the right path? Should I still pursue my journey as an author?" It's a serious, life-challenging question. The day I answer in the negative, I know that I need to move on.
Thankfully, so far I've responded with a resounding "yes!" to this question. The year I do otherwise, everything will change.
But anyway, secrets apart, this New Year's Eve, when I saw those fireworks explode, triggered by the hands of people I'll never meet, I realized that there's a reason this night is special. It's special in a very "Peter Keating" way. It's special because all of us are celebrating it. Indeed, the collectiveness of the moment makes it special. That set me thinking. What if we show the same collective spirit in answering the challenges of climate change? What if we decide in the same collective spirit that we must disarm our nation's weapons, disengage from our vices, dismember the charred remnants of our pettiness?
What if we can look beyond the Julian calendar? Ayn Rand didn't realize that Peter Keating, being the man of the masses, being the mass itself, was sending a coded message to her readers.
Let's decode. Let's celebrate what matters.
Again, Happy 2010, fellas. Hope you fare well in the new universal time zone.
