WEEKLY WTF
Happy Fucking New Year!
01-01-24 Edition
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Daily Affirmation #8
New Years Eve
Time is a river
Happy sick AF New Year. Here we are again, the last day of the Gregorian calender. An agreed upon temporal line of demarcation brought about by the Romans attempt to honor and win favor from Janus, the Roman God of beginnings. 4,000 years ago the Babylonians celebrated the New Year on the first new moon following the vernal equinox, a day in late March, a time of Spring and fertility so, you know they were fucking. In China, New Years is based on the lunar calender, somewhere between Jan. 21st and Feb. 20th. There are parades a’plenty, they name the year after an animal and they blow shit up. I could go on and on. The point is that meaning is what we make it. In Thailand New Years is celebrated in April with a water festival, symbolizing the washing away of the previous years bullshit. I can get down with that.
It does seem like a river doesn't it? Time that is. Water moves as current but an established river never actually goes anywhere. Its headlands are always its same tail and its great mouth heaves its silted fresh water into the ocean in the same place, the only variant being an oceanic backflow, the gargling, choking brackish swallow of a regular incoming and outgoing tide. Time is a concept assigned to things that move. A duck on a river seems to be moving upon a current and is carried elsewhere but the ribbon of water remains threaded through mountain and valley and chasm in the same orientation. Fuck a duck.
The river analogy isn’t perfect of course. Rivers cut and erode and expand and tighten. Headwaters do actually change. Rivers flow under or go around shit it finds in its path. But time itself is not an absolute either. One second is not one second everywhere in the universe. Put that in your wrinkly pink pipe and smoke it. I do like to think about water though and consider the river an apt metaphor for time. A thing that flows but also doesn't go anywhere. We don’t really wonder past the mechanics of what we see. A clock ticking is based on the earth spinning and the different positions of arms or numbers tell us when we should do what. A calender changing day and month based upon this big salty mudballs relationship to that giant fucking fireball we call the sun. Those squares or beep and bong reminders on our phones reminding us what we should do when.
Time is like a river in that we can look back into memory and see from whence in time we came and we can look forward into the mist to attempt to discern our destination but our canoe is only ever in one spot upon the rivers back, a little patch of water called now. We can look just past our stern and see our wake in time but our ripple is not written in time in the same way we cannot write upon water. We can only remember the ripple. Then we remember the last time we remembered the disappeared ripple. So too our memories are only as poignant as our last memory of that memory. Memory cannot be fully trusted. With your finger write “Fuck Off” on the surface of a river and you’ll see the nature of memory and the past itself.
The future is another wonky concept but may not be very different than the past in the sense that you also can’t go there, not ever. Beyond memory and imagination we will never access the past or be in a future. If that doesn't make sense then congrats your mind functions normally and as it should. But, if it doesn't make sense and you are comfortable with the idea of not knowing and it intrigues you then you’ve got a great shot at figuring it the fuck out. And by figuring I don’t mean knowing. Experiencing can transcend knowing.
I’m looking forward to this New Years eve more than most. My wife and I both have covid and as a result the possibilities of New Years Eve is reduced to one, sitchyo ass on the couch and rest. That’s it. I mean sure I like fucking around with friends and waiting for the ball to drop and drinky poos but how often do we get a truly sanctioned guilt free rest? Over the last couple days fraught with body aches and snot and the sweats, beyond it is a bizarre sort of gratitude. I realized that I never really rest. I never even sit down, like ever, unless I’m eating. Sometimes not even then. I work 48 hours in a 4 day period 80 miles from home. Then at home I do all this social media shit so as to be able to post 6 days a week. 6 days because I forced myself to have a day off from posting but on that day I put together my free Weekly WTF newsletter thing. I’m not mad about this Rona thing. I definitely don’t recommend it but I’m accepting what is because why the fuck would I not?
I seem to run in 2 year creative cycles. I did assemblage art for 2 years, loved it, had fun, was very successful then got bored. Because I seem to need to do some creative thing or another I then did photography for a couple years. Also loved it, was successful and learned a lot but got bored. As of December 2nd it's been 2 years doing this social media thing. I’m feeling a familiar sort of swing. I wasn't sure if it would happen because my videos can be about any damn thing I want but I definitely feel a shift. I’m not saying I’m quitting, I'm just feeling that this thing needs to unfold into something else. Or maybe be the same thing but in a different way. Or maybe I’m feverish and delirious and in a week will be renewed and will carry the fuck on as is. IDK. I do know that I never really talk about this shit, so that in itself is new. Documenting mind vacillations.
I’ll be glad when the rona has passed, it’s quite draining and painful but what I hope I can bring with me, at least to a degree, is this light feeling devoid of the heaviness of self imposed “Have to’s” and “Must do’s”. I mean shits gotta get done but perhaps I can relax a bit and quell that “Go Go Go’ impulse that pounds through my mind. A rhythm I wasn't even fully aware of until it stopped, until now. I quite like the silence.
For me 2023 will go out with a bang and 2024 will come in with a whisper. And some coughing and moaning and cussing but that’s fine. I don’t think I’ll be overly concerned by the paddle marks of memory made in the river bend called 2023. Nor will I be too concerned about where this wacky ass river is going or what it means. Neither past or future has any inherent existence. So for the moment I’ll do as the moment dictates: I’ll change my sweat soaked shirt, take some more advil and sink into the couch to find disturbing cult documentaries to marathon watch. I may not even make it to midnight but I gratefully don’t give a single shit. Happy New Year, Toodaloo.
Alrighty, well… have the week you want not the week you’re given. It’s up to you. You’re the one livin’.
Toodaloo
