So following up my last post, I decided to go out and watch the
world through binoculars at the exact moment that our official days
counter overflows. There wasn't nearly so much activity in
surrounding paddocks and roads tonight. I guess everyone is busy
getting boozed up, and for that matter so was I because I hadn't
used my one-day-per-year alcohol consumption allowance yet. I
haven't got all that drunk this time, although I did have trouble
standing on top of a rock earlier, and for that matter I did have
the momentary idea that standing on that rock would get me a closer
view of the moon, so yeah maybe I'm under-estimating.
So for all that, basically all I saw shortly after my watch alarm
bleeped out a new year's chime was a slight flicker amongst the
diffused distant glow of the music festival. A while later I also
heard the crack of some fireworks from some other direction that I
obviously wasn't looking when they were visible, and then the music
from the festival really picked up in volume, so in a subtle sort
of way the celebrations were ringing out all through the
countryside. Then I went inside and watched the Sydney fireworks on
TV - where this year they added to the tradition of making it look
like the harbour brige is on fire, by actually managing to make it
look like it was getting flooded at the same time. Appropriate I
suppose, given the weather over the last twelve months.
In a way it's a weird little thing, the new year celebrations. A
blip on the background noise of human activity, with this extra
little bit of energy focused on one arguably arbitrary point of
time. I imagine an alien studying the Earth from orbit and going
"huh, I wonder what happened then". Living away from a population
centre, it's a funny feeling when you see these momentary effects
of society - this, or a jet flying overhead, or that time I thought
I spotted some Starlink satellites. If you're there at the festival
or the fireworks display, it affirms how big you are as part of a
social group. But for someone a long way away from it, it's kind-of
a show of how big society is - wherever you are it reaches you
somehow.
Maybe that should be comforting, but for me at some deep level it's
quite scary.
