2016 is coming to a close, and 2017 is right around the corner. The New Year is upon us, and things are bound to change in the New Year, right? Of course, they are, we live in a world of change, not a single instant has gone by, where some form of change hasn’t occurred. Whether they are big changes such as a political revolution, or the smallest changes such as a dying cell, we live in a world that is constantly evolving and changing. None of that is going to happen because 2016 arbitrarily becomes 2017.
The concept of the New Year is one that is indeed, arbitrary. Of course, there are many types of New Year celebrations for all different kinds of peoples: Rosh Hashanah, the New Year for Jews (October 2-4 2016), Hijri, the New Year for Muslims (varies across different countries), and the Chinese New Year (celebrated on January 28, 2017). There are different kinds of calendars for different kinds of cultures, meaning that the New Year to that culture is purely relative from culture to culture.
However, the most used calendar, the Gregorian calendar, sets the New Year at January 1st. Honestly, it would make sense for the New Year to begin on the first day of the first month, but my question is, why this particular cycle of the Earth’s rotation? It’s not the only New Year, as is already established, but do people really believe that an accelerated or increased change is going to come about, because we crossed that part of the planet’s rotation?
The concept of the New Year and time is subjective from one person or culture to another; some believe that time is one straight line while others believe it is a series of branches. For me, I see time like I see a river, an ever-changing series of events in where one event does not precede or succeed another, but rather, one simply becomes the next. The New Year is but a celebration in where the Earth has made it through another 365-day cycle around the Sun, and before mankind came to rule the planet, this wasn’t a significant event whatsoever.
Nowadays, the New Year is a time of promise, hope, and change across the world, but how often does it prove to be successful? At the start of each year, people create resolutions for themselves to achieve, and carry out across the whole year, when in reality, many of those resolutions don’t even last until June. If one really thinks about it, there is no marked difference between the New Year and the old one; it becomes one and the same. But, all types of change does occur within that span of time, and is constantly changing, no matter what, it just makes no difference whether that change occurred in 2016 or 2017.
According to the Ancient Greek philosopher, Parmenides, change is merely an illusion in our perceived universe. Instead of all things existing independent of each other, everything exists as one unit, and since everything exists as one, change is impossible. The definition of change means that any given item of being can undergo a metamorphosis that would be different than its current state. We see change all the time, but if we were to live in a particular universe where all states of being are taken into account, would it even be possible then for something to even change? Even if it does, then what would trigger that spur of change to occur within the New Year, when the process of change is one that is often (but not always) independent of time.
A child would not be able to speak their first word or walk their first step under command that it happen within a particular year, it happens whenever it happens, New Year or not. A flower cannot reach a stage of maturity according to what year it is, it will mature when it gets to that point, regardless of when it was planted. These two instances are what will come to us as inevitable changes, but because it’s the New Year, does that make it any more evidence for the upcoming year to bring about any changes on its own?
“You cannot step into the same river twice.”- Heraclitus (535-475BC)
