The Irate Spectator

And so ends 2008 and so begins 2009. As another year ends, yet another begins to take its place. Change is the only thing constant,as they say, and the changing of the calendar has been constant since human beings invented the things.

An endless cycle of beginning and end that's what this all is. Sounds pretty harmless at first, but once you think about it, it starts to look real scary.

Imagine, being trapped in a never-ending cycle, condemned to keep beginning, then ending and then beginning again, ending that beginning and just repeating that cycle on and on. Just like that guy from Greek mythology who was condemned by the gods to push a boulder up a mountain. When he takes a break, the boulder rolls back down. And yes, he has to push it back up again.

And for what is all of this for? You begin so that someday you will end and you end so that you can begin anew. Ours is an existence with no sense of purpose, no idea why we must go through with all this, absolutely nothing to look forward to and make us feel that we are doing all this for a reason. No, we just trudge on, dragging ourselves to another day, concerning ourselves with the myriad trivialities we find ourselves facing, then dragging ourselves out. Before you know it, we dragged ourselves in and out of three hundred sixty five days and it's time to change the calendar. Just an endless cycle of beginning and ending. Fortunately, our trivial pursuits give us little bite-size servings of purpose that keeps us from asking, "What's the point of all this?"

From attempts to find the answer to this question began religion. Hindus and Buddhists make it their ultimate goal of finding a way out of their endless cycle, birth and rebirth for Hindus, suffering for Buddhists. Hindus try to attain this with their karma, bhakti or jnanani. I won't discuss in detail because it's so complicated I got lost in the middle of attempting to understand. My apologies to my Asian History professor, who is quite a capable teacher really. Buddhism sounds easier, albeit in a slilghtly deceptive manner. All we have to do is find enlightenment. Yeah, like that's easy.

Meanwhile, Christianity makes it all simpler. We don't get reincarnated, we are taught. But our souls will all be restless unless we find rest in Him. We must become one with God and understand His plan for us and live by it. Simple, reasonable, rational and more humanistic. No wonder Christianity spread all over the world. Or was it the frailes gripping the coattails of Imperialism that spread Christianity? Anyway, the Muslims have it even more simple: Follow the five pillars of Islam and maybe wage a little jihad if you have to and you'll do just fine.

Regardless of what creed you follow, everything just goes around and around. The triumphs and achievements of humanity with the follies and perversions it proliferates. The unspeakable beauty and order found in nature and its cataclysmic wrath that claims the lives of ordinary mortals minding their own business. War and peace, life and death, prosperity and poverty, joy and sorrow, and love.

Well, love is something of a special case. It doesn't really alternate with its antithesis of hate the same way with the above, as it does not necessarily follow that where there is no love there is hate. Nonetheless, it is not devoid of a cyclical nature.

Consider, you find love for the first time. Everything is great. Birds sing in the trees. Sunshine illuminates your whole world. Chocolate raindrops fall from the sky. Then it ends. You are plunged in a depression worse than anyhting inflicted by subprime mortgage and speculative capital run amok. Eventually, after splurging or consuming large amounts of alcoholic beverages or whatever is necessary to cheer you up, you get over it and move on. But suddenly one day, it all starts again. The sun pulls its shutters back, the birds go back to their places and a chocolate rain cloud is hastily dispatched to your location. And just as suddenly, it ends.

An endless cycle of beginning and end. That's what this all is. We wake up everyday not because we really want to but because there's just nothing damn better to do. But maybe, just maybe, if we can set aside some time, despite being completely immersed in this sorry excuse for a life that we are in, to looking for something, or even someone, with the potential to make this pathetic existence bearable, then it's almost as if we already found a way to actually make this pathetic existence bearable, even if we just hope.