Sabtu, 03 Januari 2009

Between Two New Years

This week we celebrate two new years: Hijri on Monday and Gregorian on Thursday. Like usual, I received some short messages and email containing words of celebration, greeting, or prayer. The words could be: “We hope that things would be better in the new year”—or something like that. Some of them tried to be philosophical. “Yesterday is history, now is reality, and tomorrow is mystery,” one of my friends said yesterday on his short message.

Most of us have much hope that new year will give us a good momentum to be better. New Year is almost identical to new spirit, new life, or new future. But, regrettably, the celebration of new year tends to be a cliché. It becomes somewhat of a ritual. The notion of new spirit appears as an overused idea.

Actually, I never had a special impression relating to celebrating new year, especially Gregorian year. Moreover, Gregorian year has no historical context to amplify its spirit of change to me—or maybe I don’t know. The focus of new year party is only when the clock of new year ticks on at the midnight. So, the celebration of new Gregorian year nearly doesn’t affect me at all.

Meanwhile, although Hijri year has a strong revolutionary historical background, it seems to me that the pursuit of new spirit has to fight against cliché. The searching of new spirit has to become a personal or maybe existential battle. It means that the general context of historical background should be brought into my actual everyday life.

But the essential problem, in fact, is about the cliché. Such explanations above just become a cliché too. We often hear something like this, so it’s no longer interesting and effective.

Between two celebrations, the searching of new spirit still continues.

6 komentar:

Anonim mengatakan...

terlepas bahwa tidak ada hal yang cukup berarti dg perayaan tahun baru, makan bersama dengan lauk ikan manglah dan ayam bakar yang gosong tapi ternyata dalamnya tidak matang ternyata tetap asyik.

Ummul Corn mengatakan...

tolos ajunan se meossa ka jepang? ma' lako abehesa inggris. Enggi... berre'..

Muhammad-Affan mengatakan...

M79 Memang Genius!

Sunan Achmad Sunandar mengatakan...

Wah..wah.. saya harus banyak belajar sama sampeyan. 3 postingan terakhir berbahasa Inggris. weleh-weleh..kapan saya bisa seperti sampeyan ya?
Oia, menurut abdinah, berharaplah tahun baru ini memberi sesuatu yang lebih berarti dalam hidup. Jangan berhenti berharap keh. Meski harapan itu tidak ditekadkan pada tahun yang baru, tidak masalah. Hehe..

Anonim mengatakan...

Cong, the world now need very much the sprituality. Hence, no more lie, no hypocrisy. Instead, honesty and such would be pervasive . Bravo ...

Muhammad-Affan mengatakan...

English M79 "tidak sekedar english". Englishnya punya cita rasa, bening, dan renyah...