Happy New Year 2024

I see the sea, the endless horizon, The infinity on the next end, and the exotic food on another. :) Meeting Nepalis here, in Beirut, was nice - I can speak Nepali and talk about Dal Bhat and hills and corruption in Nepal. But in the end, what matters is the celebration, good company and of course the view of sea. What a start of the year..

The variety of food - how could I resist myself? I forgot my calorie count and enjoyed it. One of the waiters, Mohammad, served us like "Royals". He became my brother, who got "lost" at a train station when we were kids. Very Bollywood. We asked for a glass of wine, and he served a bottle, I asked for his recommendation of food, and he brought a whole plate of the best Lebanese taste. Having a brother is a privilege. I have invited him to Nepal, and he will come when he finishes his graduation.

2024 here I come but wait.... Neil Tyson said, "Not that anybody’s asked, but New Year's Day on the Gregorian Calendar is a cosmically arbitrary event, carrying no Astronomical significance at all". I wonder why this celebration? The live on CNN, the Times Square crowd? Maybe the answer lies with Yuval Harari who said in his book, Homo Sapiens, that a large number of strangers can cooperate successfully by believing in common myths. Any large-scale cooperation––whether a modern state, a medieval church, an ancient city or an archaic tribe––is rooted in common myths that exist only in people’s collective imagination. Imagined realities are not the same as lies, because “as long as this communal belief persists, the imagined reality exerts force in the world”. So even if an imagined reality is founded on a web of lies, it can change the world if enough people believe in it. So, let the New Year celebration be 'New Year'.

For me, I have no resolutions.

Wish you all a very Happy New Year 2024

Here is a list of things that are not doing the thing.

“Preparing to do the thing isn't doing the thing.

Scheduling time to do the thing isn't doing the thing.

Making a to-do list for the thing isn't doing the thing.

Telling people you're going to do the thing isn't doing the…
— Chris Williamson (@ChrisWillx) June 1, 2023

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