A thought for the New Year

My dear Billy, Things will never be the same again. Isn’t that progress? The future is not what it used to be. These are the good old days. Just you wait and see. Woody Allen thinks that more than any other time in history, mankind finds itself at a crossroads. “One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.” But surely it can’t be as desperate as that, my dear Billy. In any case what we anticipate seldom occurs. In times like these, it is helpful to remember that there have always been times like these. But I think we must also agree that the past is over. And the year that has been now belongs to the past. It might have been very good to some and very bad to others. But we can’t do anything about it now. What’s done cannot be undone, as Lady Macbeth would say. Instead of trying to change the past, and sitting there lamenting, it would be a more rewarding exercise to try to change ourselves. Just like the New Year. Once again, to follow a tradition as old as the brave old world, a brand new year is dawning after a cycle of 365 days. Next year it will take the cycle 366 days to be complete, because February will be endowed with 29 days. Those who were born on a 29 February will thus have the opportunity to celebrate their quarternial birthday. 2015 is almost gone, never to come back, except in the memory of people who remember. May all the hatred, pettiness, jealousy, prejudices and inhumanity it has witnessed be buried with it. 2016 is here with new hopes and aspirations. It is as if God is giving yet another chance to humanity to turn over a new leaf, to take a fresh departure and start anew. May you and I have the good sense and wisdom of taking that chance, my dear Billy. It has for long been held by sages and savants, and maybe by you too, my dear Billy, that one should always look to the past in order to prepare for the future, because yesterday paves the way to tomorrow. But I guess that when they made that claim, they could never, in the remotest confines of their imagination, or through the enlightenment of their third eye, have foreseen a year like 2015. The least said about it, the better. It’s not time to rake up memories. It will only take you to the blues. There’s no point like King Richard II, calling back yesterday, or bidding time return. Many of us make today wretched by allowing ourselves to be swamped with regret for past mistakes or unseized opportunities. Others ruin the day but getting into a fever nervous anticipation about possible calamities that they fear may strike them in the future. This is not only a futile process, my dear Billy, but, what is worse, it tends to tear down morale and invoke self-pity. Life becomes all the more difficult to face. It is bad enough to know what the past has been; it would be intolerable to know the future. The future is something that everyone reaches at the pace of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is. Speaking for myself, one of the first things that I have advised myself to do before the year has had enough of us and is through, is to make a few resolutions for the new year. I have often noticed that the bad thing about resolutions is that people stop drinking after alcohol has replaced the blood in their system; they start controlling their blood sugar after diabetes has played havoc with their health; they resolve never to get married when the wife is patiently waiting at home. So I have brought myself to make resolutions early enough. The best resolution I have made is to break all previous resolutions, especially those that are still pending, and to finally settle down to living like all other Mauritians. Well, my dear Billy, if you can’t beat them, you’ve got to join them somehow, haven’t you? And if in Rome you have you have to do like Romans, I don’t see any reason why it should be difficult to live like a Mauritian in Mauritius. I have therefore resolved to live, behave, act, react, think, perform, crush, feel and be like a Mauritian. So help me God. I am listing some of these resolutions for your amusement, my dear Billy. I have resolved in my honour and conscience, never to be punctual. I have learned the hard way that punctuality is an outdated concept, an undemocratic tendency, a highly corrupt, conservative state of mind and a vile bourgeois mentality that exhibits a total lack of politeness and consideration and respect towards those who are late. Among the other resolutions, I have decided that whenever I get a request, to consider the religion, caste, political adherence, etc. of the person making the request before granting or rejecting it, I have also decided to maintain a very high standard of living in order to impress others, even if I have to take bribes or be perpetually in debt, or defraud people for it. Moreover I’ll beat my wife as often as possible to remind her that I am the husband at home; I’ll never stop my car at the Pedestrian Crossings to allow people to cross the roads; and in periods of water scarcity, I won’t deprive myself of an abundant use of the previous liquid. A very happy New Year to you and your family, my dear Billy.