Time for flashback

It's that time of the year when you are bound to hear someone, if not yourself, say how fast the year has flown. Not a very original statement as one hears the same said of every year. Have you ever heard anyone say how slowly 365 days have gone by? Well, I haven't.

Minutes may seem to crawl past, hours even, but never a whole year. Doesn't seem very logical but the sum isn't a total of the parts in this case.

Newspapers and magazines review the year past by chronicling important happenings across the world. These might be ground-breaking deals and truces or wars, famine, floods and other natural catastrophes. A reading of these earth-shattering events do not hold out much hope for humanity as the cycle of wanton destruction and calamities takes its toll.

Human suffering and oppression continue unabated as world attention is diverted from one debacle to another without any genuine attempt to ameliorate one tragic situation before moving on to another.

As soon as a tragedy unfolds, governments are quick with their offers of aid. But how many actually come through? One reads about financial pledges made but which have not been honoured. Yet there are philanthropic individuals and NGOs who have done their utmost to help rebuild lives and pick up the pieces. Staggering sums are spent on wars but very little on peace.

As we approach the festive season we might be tempted to look back and, realising all that we have failed to achieve, make resolutions for the future. Most of us will do so with the best of intentions but end up losing sight of our goals as we get caught up in webs of our own making.

Yet there are fruitful moments of introspection and soul-searching when we face up to the stark reality that we haven't kept promises made to ourselves or others. This will inevitably be followed by feelings of guilt as we resolve to learn from our mistakes and do better next time.

Setbacks

So, like publications, the ordinary man also compiles a list of events, big and small, in a news letter to be circulated among family and friends. This summarises the happenings in one's life, successes as well as setbacks, progress on the home front such as a child graduating from school or college, a wedding or an illness, a monumental decision made and implemented.

I receive many of these every year and enjoy perusing the life and times of friends who might be the worst communicators for the rest of the year but somehow feel compelled to make up for lost time now and redeem themselves in my eyes. There might be some parts which I am already familiar with due to an occasional telephone call when we touch base so to speak, but there is still a lot which is new and news to me. After digesting the contents I am always overwhelmed by an urge to reciprocate the gesture. I sit down and try to recall all the momentous events in the past 12 months but somehow end up rejecting most as being too trivial or of not much interest to anybody but myself.

So, the impulse is still-born and, as I reply to each of these detailed chronicles, I make a feeble excuse that I have been so rushed off my feet with so many things (what these things are is best left to their imagination) that I just haven't found the time to put my thoughts together. I end my missive by promising to do better next year. And, guess what, even as the excuse is offered I am filled with a vague sense of guilt as I know very well that this is yet another promise that is unlikely to see fulfilment.