For Auld Lang Syne, M'dearFrom a poem that preceded the more well-known version of "Auld Lang Syne," this one "probably" by Sir Robert Ayton:
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never thought upon,
The flames of love extinguished,
And freely past and gone?
Is thy kind heart now grown so cold
In that loving breast of thine,
That thou canst never once reflect
On old-long-syne?It's funny how the song everybody sings as the clock strikes midnight on its way into the New Year is about looking back. You would think that it would be about looking forward, into the future, but instead it's advising you to look back on your days of auld lang syne. And every year that's what people do-- New Year's has a tendency to make everyone nostalgic, and I wonder how much "Auld Lang Syne" has to do with that. It certainly makes
me nostalgic, as is evidenced by my previous not-quite-New-Year's blog entries, in which I mostly look back upon my year. That's what people do at New Year's-- they review the past 365 days and almost always decide that those days were insufficient, and resolve to make the next 365 bigger and better. That kind of foward thinking is
good, I suppose. But why look back because the calendar's about to change? This is coming from someone who's often stuck firmly in the past, who tries to never think about the future, but really. New Year's should be about the New Year, not the Old one. 2005 is
so last year and 2006 is the new black.
Of course, I'll probably say these things and then go wax sentimental about all the things that have happened over the course of the year. But it's all relative, anyway. I'm going to go into the New Year facing forward. Or at the very least, edge into it sideways. It's the least I can do.