Happy New Year

The rain battered our house last night. The mice sought refuge from the storm under my roof. Every springtime, where I live, the mice grow bold. Born in the fields just beyond the house during an unseasonable warm snap, when the weather turns rainy or cold, they come. Every year they decide that they like it better in our already crowded house and they stay. It is a cushy life for them, so they grow fat, tax our resources, and leave a mess. Last night we had a storm, and the river flooded. Now the house is loud with tiny refugees.

I don't have the heart to kill them, so I set live traps, baited with peanut butter, their favourite. Once I trap them, I drive them to the local shopping mall. I release them near the dumpsters where they'll be happy. I will spend the next three weeks diligently trapping and releasing. Then I won't have to worry again until around November, when another cold snap forces them to seek refuge indoors. In any case, my little annual visitors kept me up last night. So, dear readers, I apologise in advance. If I sound a little disjointed, and if my stream of consciousness meanders onto strange floodplains, it's from lack of sleep.

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What a nice time of year to celebrate the new year. I recall an article I wrote just about three months ago wishing you all a happy 2021, and now I'm wishing you a happy 1418.

I have a strange relationship with time. According to all my electronics, it's perpetually twelve… blink… twelve… blink… twelve o'clock. That's fine with me. This way, I always have the whole afternoon to get things done, no matter what time of day it is. Now if it's 1418, I'm not going to even be born for close to six hundred years, so how could I ever be late with a writing assignment? The laptop I'm writing on tells me it's 10:08 on Sunday morning April 17, 2011. I accept this. It's still early in the day.

If it's 1418 and this is the Americas, then the de facto calendar on this continent has got to be the Aztec one.

I am no fan of idolatry, human sacrifice, or any of the grizzlier aspects of Mesoamerican culture. I do, however admire the Aztec calendar, and suggest it could be put to good use in America and Bangladesh alike. So, as a public service and a special New Year's treat, I will share what the Aztecs would have said about the first day of the year in Bangladesh. This year Pahela Baishakh fell on the twelfth day (lizard) of the first month (reed) of the twelfth year (reed). My Aztec calendar, which I reference online (azteccalendar.com), says that this "lizard-day" is a good day to work on your reputation through actions, not words. The 13-day month of Reed teaches that we should not view our successes and failures as a measure of our worth. The calendar talks about these successes and failures as a maze we walk through to perfect our hearts.

The reason I like the Aztec calendar is that it always speaks of self-improvement. Of course, in its original form, it required blood sacrifice, but let's just ignore that unfortunate piece of history for a second. It's hard to improve one's self when one is lying face-up atop a pyramid staring at one's own still-beating heart. Really, that's a bad time to make any earthly plans, or even to wonder if you've left the oven on. The metaphorical fact is that you've arrived at the top of that pyramid by climbing 365 steps. If we (and when I say we I mean us'ns here in the US, and you'uns there in Bangladesh) ponder the steps we take as a people each day of our lives, we can make conscious decisions as individuals that mean we're not doomed to ascend that pyramid.

The Aztec calendar is not a horoscope. It is not a calendar that makes claims at fortune-telling. For me, fortune-telling is the worst sort of hooey. It's the exact opposite of self-improvement, because it implies that our destinies are shaped by forces beyond our control. The same mentality that governs the belief in divination governs the belief that our elected officials, or the economy, or the weather, or the mice are responsible for corruption, misery and other ruts we fall into. Worse still is the mentality that because we live in a corrupt system we ourselves must act corrupt in order to survive. That is backwards thinking. Government is a fun-house mirror. It can distort the national character, often in comical ways, but ultimately, it only reflects who we are as a people. If we hold ourselves to a high standard of conduct, then we will tolerate very little deviation in the government which represents us. If we are intransigent in our dealings with others, then we are less likely to elect individuals who are willing to reach meaningful compromises with political opponents.

Interestingly, the Aztec understood the fractal nature of society, and emphasised individual discipline as a way of keeping government from growing corrupt. In marking the days, the Aztec calendar focuses on different common values and helps guide the individual (and, once upon a time, the civilisation) to live according to that value, at least for that day. Each of these values is expanded upon in the thirteen day Trecenas. So, today, as I write it is April 17, 2011. On the Aztec calendar I see it is day 1 (Death), in Trecena 1 (Death), in year 12 (Reed). I am told that the aspect "Death" that governs the day means it is a good day to reflect on my priorities in life. The calendar reminds me that today I teeter on the brink of possibility, straddling the thin sliver of time between the ending of old ways, and the launching of new, better habits and ways. I am told that the thirteen day "month" (which also happens to have Death as its aspect) is also one of transformation. In the coming thirteen days I am encouraged to plant the seeds of change that, though tiny and subtle, must be tended in order to bring forth a great harvest at some moment down the road.

I think that message, although displaced by 592 years and three days, is an excellent one to ponder as we start a new year. So many people speak of the feeling of confidence in there in Bangladesh. Your nation has an air of youth. Those who've written comments on my column often refer to Bangladesh as a "teenager" among nations. I got the sense, watching the celebrations at the start of the World Cup, reading about your New Year's celebrations, and reading many of your papers, that Bangladesh is like a tree in bud, just waiting for a sunny day to burst forth in full flower. I have read that Pahela Baishakh's festivities are focused on the dawn. This is way wiser than our American celebration of the New Year. Our traditions focus on some random point in the middle of the night, incalculable without clocks, in the coldest season of the year. That may actually be what my clocks are telling me when they keep flashing twelve. "In the darkest hour of the coldest day, the power has failed. Reset me!" It's a horrible message. We celebrate by drinking to excess and then making resolutions. You there in Bangladesh watch the sun rise, sleep in and wake to sunlight. We watch a ball drop. We wake with hangovers to another cold day.

My cousin, who is very wise, once advised me never to make a life-changing decision while the weather was cold. It is some of the best advice I ever heeded, although in many ways it came too late. Most of my New Year's decisions were disasters I've regretted ever since. I wonder how life would have been different if I had made those resolutions with the promise of dawn, springtime, and even mice factoring into my calculations.

So, happy Pahela Baishakh, Bangladesh! The journey of 365 steps for your youthful nation will be energetic, frenetic and not without banana peels and quicksand. But let us mutually resolve to plant the seeds of change where they matter most — in the garden of our own individual responsibilities. If today we can act a little less corrupt, if just today… I -um, I mean… my, um friend… refuses to download illegal music torrents, for instance, if I hold myself to higher ideals, if I waste less, spend less, refuse to run up my little debts, perhaps these things can have a ripple effect. This way the government which reflects who I am will not find a blemish it can amplify and distort in its funhouse mirror. If I act with integrity, I am one more brick in the foundation of a government which would demand integrity. I humbly suggest that you there in Bangladesh conduct the personal governance of your own lives the way you wish your government conducted itself.

Sure there will be obstacles. Mice and politicians share many traits that make our lives miserable. At least here in the US, they enter our lives during Primary season, around April, and become annoyingly persistent in November. They come into our homes uninvited, invade our cupboard, and then remain until we can lure them, trap them and use their own avaricious appetites to get rid of them. They are especially noisy during a storm, and they multiply if we are careless about keeping our homes tidy. But, if my research on Pahela Baishakh is true, if one of your New Year's traditions is to do a good housecleaning to celebrate the new year, then perhaps this will be the year, on every calendar, that you throw your windows open to the fresh breeze of a new dawn, the year that your orchards will bloom and your cupboards will overflow. Happy New Year!

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Frank Domenico Cipriani writes a weekly column in the Riverside Signal called "You Think What You Think And I'll Think What I Know." He is also the founder and CEO of The Gatherer Institute — a not-for-profit public charity dedicated to promoting respect for the environment and empowering individuals to become self-taught and self-sufficient. His most recent book, "Learning Little Hawk's Way of Storytelling", is scheduled to be released by Findhorn Press in May of 2011.