Last Thoughts of 2007

Many people celebrated Christmas a short while ago (or other religious festivities) and refer to it as a special time of year, often mentioning a "Christmas mood" - time to spend with your family, time to relax, sit together in the warmth, escaping the problems of the outside world. It's only a few days, but people are looking forward to it for a long time. It's a time when people behave differently. For some people it is a depressing time, mostly because they see other people enjoying it and get even more depressed than normal.
I'm an atheist. I don't believe in the story of the birth of Christ. For me Christmas has lost it's religious background, but is still a special time which I spend with my family. A time where I can relax, meet friends and exchange gifts. For me Christmas is a family celebration. It hasn't lost any importance just because I don't believe in the religious bits and pieces. It is still a special time, but, to be honest, it could be any time of year.

Tomorrow the year 2007 ends. But what does that mean? We think of the new year as a new start, an opportunity to change things, to do things better than last year. Many of us have New Year's resolutions to exactly specify what they want to change; like a tick-list. We think of it as a new white sheet of paper which is waiting to be filled, a white canvas we can paint on. Are we really able to look at the sheet of last year, think about it, reset our life and draw it differently this time?
From a scientific point of view all that happens is the date changes. We have the calendar to count time and for reasons of convenience we use different units which enable us to speak about fixed periods of time: a month, a year, days, seconds. So all that happens is that the last chunk, the portion of the date called "year", gets incremented by one.
Time is flowing continuously and as time flows, so do our lives. Scientifically there is no resetting our lives at New Year's Eve, no new start. It just goes on. All that really changes is a number.

So, as an atheist, although Christmas has no background I still don't want to miss the time with my family. I just call it Christmas so everybody knows what I'm talking about. It's just a concept everybody knows. But, it doesn't have to be on the 25th of December, I could do the same things any other time. It's nice it's in winter (at least here!) but it doesn't have to be. As long as it is at least once a year! ;-)
As a scientist, I know that nothing changes on New Year's Eve but a number. Still, I think about a new year as a chance to do things differently than last year, to try new ideas. As with Christmas, New Year's Eve is also an abstract concept. Everything we associate with it just exists in our heads. Does this make it less important? I don't think so! Humans need concepts, sometimes more and sometimes less abstract. We use them to organise our world, to make it easier to understand and have gotten used to so many of them, we sometimes forget they are just concepts. But, concepts can be changed and should be questioned from time to time.

We need a time like Christmas so we don't forget the importance of a few relaxing days or the importance of family. We use the concept "year" and need New Year's Eve to partition the time given to us into chunks we can handle. But, many people forget the things we do in these times could be done all the time. I can change things in my life all the time, can spend time with my family all the time and can relax as often as I think is necessary. Christmas and New Year's Eve are concepts which help us remember, but we should not narrow it down to these few days only.

I hope you all had a nice few days over Christmas and have the list with resolutions ready for tomorrow. My only resolution is to celebrate "New Year's Eve" every day next year. Thinking about the last ones, perhaps I should omit the alcohol and only think about changes and opportunities! :)

Happy New Year everyone!

Sven