Once again I am back to the vibrant city of Las Vegas for Christmas but unlike any other holidays, instead of pondering about the universe, I looked at the calendar to realize today is December 21 so my thought immediately started to wonder how significant today’s date really is.
First of all, DECEMBER 21 is winter solstice and it is the shortest day of the year with the least amount of sunlight when half of the Earth is tilted the farthest away from the sun at the Northern Hemisphere above the equator. It marks the first day of winter and it is also the last day of the Astrological sign Sagittarius. Well, it seems like DECEMBER 21 is quite an unforgettable date on the calendar.
Title 42 is making headline news these days and it is a law currently enforced by the Border Patrol that gives the government the power to stop people from entering US in order to keep diseases such as Covid 19 out of the country. During the Trump administration era, Title 42 was used to block migrants seeking asylum when it is supposed to be a health policy rather than immigration, and the Biden administration was supposed to end its use by DECEMBER 21, 2022. Many have called for the policy to end, saying that it’s illegal and that the international law promises people having the right to seek asylum while others think it is deemed necessary for Title 42 to remain effective or it would lead up to 18000 additional migrants per day crossing the border with the intention to stay in the country if the policy ends. However controversial this seems, DECEMBER 21 was meant to be a significant day only if the Biden administration was not blocked by the judge to end Title 42.
The end of the world prediction was making headline news back in 2012 and it was supposed to occur on DECEMBER 21, 2012 when one of the great cycles in the Mayan calendar came to an end. In the run-up to the day, the internet abounded with predictions about an apocalypse happening on DECEMBER 21 of 2012 and even NASA was compelled to publish an information page about why the world wouldn’t end on DECEMBER 21, 2012. One theory suggests a galactic alignment which would create chaos on Earth due to the gravitational effect between the sun and the black hole called Sagittarius A located in the center of our galaxy. Another theory involves a polar shift meaning a reversal of the north and south magnetic poles. Some scientists believe that the Earth is overdue for a geomagnetic reversal but there are no evidence pointing for this to start on any particular date. The Mayan Calendar official countdown for the world to end was DECEMBER 21, 2012 at 3:11am ( Las Vegas time) making DECEMBER 21 quite a significant date despite the fact that it didn’t happen.
When I thought that was all that I could think of about DECEMBER 21, I realized another fact about that date as I was closing in to end this blog, DECEMBER 21 is my birthday. I asked myself how significant that is compare to the above although winter solstice isn’t DECEMBER 21 everywhere on Earth and the removal of Title 42 failed on DECEMBER 21, 2022 along with the world didn’t end on DECEMBER 21, 2012, my birthday is completely INSIGNIFICANT even though it happens every year and applicable to everywhere I go on this planet.
I stopped celebrating my birthday 8 years ago and to me it is not something I should celebrate due to the inescapable fact that I am only getting older leading to lesser time remain on this planet. While this is my line of thinking, I don’t expect everyone to think the way I do. There is nothing wrong with celebrating birthdays but I am not fond of knowing that I get older every year and as twisted as it seems, this is just the way I feel these days. I spent my last 8 birthdays in different places very quietly without telling anybody about it when I went to the Philippines, Burma, Thailand, Shanghai, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Hawaii staying very low key but truly enjoying my travels until the pandemic hit. For the past three years I was staying on American soil in Las Vegas and Kona the Big Island and this year for the first time, I am spending New Year in Oceanside, CA, my home state. If anyone read my blog back in July, Oceanside is actually a very cool beach town between Los Angeles and San Diego, but in the winter month of December and January it’s been raining almost everyday due to the atmospheric river storm hitting the west coast with lots of places being flooded along with power outage, fortunately we don’t have it here. Once again, I am spending a very relaxing birthday, Xmas and New Year in Vegas and Oceanside without telling any of my friends about my birthday for I didn’t want to celebrate and there is really no need to at all. Just a day knowing I am getting older by another year , should I be happy or sad ? I felt neither while continue to cherish the opportunity travelling to different places and truly enjoying myself wherever I go.
Most of my friends stay home during the holidays spending time with families and loved ones and they posted pictures of their gatherings on FB every year displaying the unity within their celebrations, embracing each other so graciously which I find very unnatural for myself because I never had such a strong bonded type of family and while I admire them deeply, it is way too normal for me. I would not know how to act or what to say and definitely feel very strange if I ever get invited to such gathering, but I avoided those type of gatherings due to the travels in the past 32 years to different part of the world, I become so used to just spending quality time on my own exploring the various cultures including the meaning of life and the universe without having to deal with any unnecessary dramas or feeling uneasy in the gatherings. This year in Oceanside is no different and it’s been very relaxing despite the rainy weather we are having here. I hope I can continue to live this way and be able to keep traveling to every part of the world with many more DECEMBER 21 to come without any celebrations for it is just another symbolic day signifying I am getting older again but in my mind I have to let it go and keep doing my things as usual. There are lots of items we can wish for and human beings are generally wishful thinkers but the universe does not grant us anything just because we wish to have them. Here I wish I get younger or going back to the good old days to relive the past. REALLY? ” You don’t always get what you want”, a great song by the Rolling Stone. Here I want to reemphasize that “faith” isn’t reliable and ” prayers” don’t always work. I have absolutely nothing against people for having ” faith” and practicing ” prayers” especially during this holiday seasons, but the universe simply doesn’t operate at that level and the laws of physics don’t follow faith and prayers.
Here I wish everyone a Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year. If you have a close family, may the strong bond continue to hold for all of you because a loving family is truly a blessing and it is hard to come by. Although I never had one but I can feel it, very much like a person who is born blind and never have vision experience, but that person can sense what it is like if he/she does have it. Some of my very close friends said to me that they felt sorry about what a lone wolf I have been in the past who doesn’t have a close family. The fact is I never had one and not knowing what it is like to have one like a man born blind and never had vision, there is nothing to miss. However, I feel blessed that today I stand strong, enjoy my travels, cherish my freedom, and above all, free of all dramas. What more do I expect? I only wish I have many more DECEMBER 21 to come as Winter Solstice, ( not birthday celebrations) while keeping in mind that the universe is heartless, thoughtless, fearless, tearless but absolutely PRICELESS. One thing for sure is that I will keep searching for the meaning and finding some answers about this wonderful universe as long as those DECEMBER 21 will come around buying me more time to do so.. Happy New Year to all from Oceanside, CA.