Wishing a Happier New Year

Another new year, stuck in loneliness. Half of the family is in Iran, the country that has now become forbidden for me. Another half in America, the country that is too far to travel to when on a time-budget. Well, who says being busy is bad? It keeps the mind off of a lot of things; off of Iran; off of loneliness; off of the fact that I did not do spring-cleaning; that I decided against having a party. Last year, I kicked myself and did all that I had to do. I even cooked my famous soup (here's a picture of what that soup is, from 4 years ago).

This year, I am not going to anything but set a table, with cookies mother brought for me from Iran last year, with a tiny plate of wheat sprouts I bought for 2 Euros; the narcissus flowers I cut from a friend's house; and a pudding called Samanu, made of germinating wheat. It is apparently imported from Iran; and is reportedly a delicious brand. But, I have always hated Samanu, so I am not going to try.

I will also wear a new piece of clothing; I have an Indian silk shawl that I bought last year and never wore. If the weather is nice, I am going to wear this magenta/ruby/black piece of art and take my camera on a stroll on Thames, wishing for a streak of sun and little rain.

My only resolutions for the new year is to be a better friend and see as many old ones and make as many new friends as I can.

Prayers are for the believers, and I am not one. I am not a particularly wishful person either. In general, my faith in order and structure is more than in entropy. Entropies can cause miraculous growth but I think the disastrous probabilities dominate. Therefore, I cannot "wish" that Iran will become a heaven of respect and humanity next year.

There is a long way to go and a lot of infrastructure to set before building a different order in Iran. The old order, until it becomes entirely dysfunctional shall go on; just as it has been going on for at least 3000 years that our history is Occident-documented.

But I do wish for more dialogue, more understanding and more foresight to develop out of the order of things.

The order of things commands that leaders in Iran take a look at what is happening in the region, all those anti-state revolutions, and will see themselves in the mirror of the dictators who are affronted by their people.

The order of things commands that all of us pause on a moment of reflection and learn lessons that nature has just recently taught: that man, even the uberJapanese one, is helpless before the nature; and that our interventions in nature should perhaps not touch the nuclear cores of the maters of which life is made.

What makes our Persian New Year, Nowrooz, sacred to me is that it begins with spring; that it is tied to nature, to the sun and to the earth, and depends on the mercy of the galactic forces that keep the earth and the sun in an order that makes our humanly being possible. May this metaphore inspire all of us to keep a balanced order of things, as our lives spin and revolve.

Happy 1390!