Happy new year

The astonishingly popular new year's folk song Auld Lang Syne comes from a poem penned by Scots literary hero Robbie Burns back in 01788 (which happens also to be the year that the first fleet of convict ships arrived to found the penal colony that would become Australia, where I was born not quite 200 years later).

The phrase auld lang syne means "long, long ago". The whole song's about looking back, an activity that is not without its merits, but one handsomely served by many other occasions, e.g., every anniversary of everything that has ever happened. For all sorts of reasons, a new year's song that instead looks forward seems to be in order.

***

For Future Time; or: Auld Lang Syne (aiglatson edition)

Should all our futures be ignored
And never brought to mind?
Let's cast a gaze to years ahead
For the sake of future time

For all of future time, my dear
For all of future time
Tonight, we toast posterity
And imagine future time!

Oh, auld lang syne is well and good
And nostalgia is fine
But every hope and dream depends
On the shape of future time

For all of future time, my dear
For all of future time
We'll dream together, you and I
Of our lives in future time

More posts:
> Tombstone and the future of history
> Designing futures
> How to make Stone Soup
> Parables and horseshit