3 weeks of this year are done.
6% of the year has passed.
1 part out of 20 is done.
ooof.
Time goes fast especially when you want it to go slow.
So do vacations.



Sunsets

Like a heavily loaded train that tries to accelerate from zero to its top speed, I pull my carriages with effort. I had almost forgotten how excruciating it is to regain top speed after it reaches zero. Zero. The peak of inertia. The trench of output. But was it even a vacation if momentum didn’t reduce to zero? But are vacations supposed to do that? If the train dreads the zero after the stop, does it have to do with the train or the stop? This is an endless debate, like one between a Contrarian and an Opportunist.

I don’t have a liking towards routine. But I still very much like watching sunsets. SFU offers breathtaking sunsets. This one was captured at this spot. SFU offers breathtaking sunsets Isn’t this breathtaking? I don’t know about you, my breath gets taken away

December felt like a sunset. Majestic and grand, irrespective of how cloudy the entire year was. I don’t even remember the details of the day, just the memory of a peaceful sun setting on the horizon of honest work done.



Sunrises

January is the Monday after a super long weekend. Half of January is spent in catching up on becoming relevant again. Messages. Emails. And that one guy who’d still wishes greetings for the New Year on the 15th. God bless his enthusiasm. (Where does he get it from? asking for a friend…)
For a brown guy not getting the sun a lot, seasonal depression is quite real. Why couldn’t the year start somewhere around the vernal equinox? Spring’s bloom in bright sunlight might inspire me to come out of my house, however dazed.

Momentum lost on Monday impacts the entire week. Each day you spend catching on the previous day. The entire week is spent catching up on itself. Or so I thought… So much of our time is spent in measuring progress relative to the destination, which appears as far away as when we started our journey. Sometimes, it’s not time that we chase, but vindication. We want to be reasonable, we want to justify our intent, and above all, rationalise our choices.
The irony? We seek this vindication from ourselves. Again, a debate between an Opportunist who justifies and a Contrarian who denies. And endless debate.

I let them debate. I watch the sunrise instead. I focus on the gorgeous shades that the dawn colours the sky in, and how the sunlight animates the leaves on the silhouettes of trees. The contrarian and the opportunist stop their debate. All this time, I learnt to appreciate the sunrise, so that they may be inspired to see the next one. It was only when I learnt to see the mountains that I realised that the mountains that are purple against the rising sun can also sport an amber glow when the sun sets on the opposite horizon.
It was never about the sunrise or the sunset.
It was always about what I found worth looking at.