Fast away the old year passes

It always has and it always will. Fa la la la la, la la la la.

Or perhaps that truism is not true at all. Perhaps there was a time before the earth existed when it did not make a trip around the sun every year. And perhaps there will come a time when the earth will no longer exist when it won't make a trip around the sun every year, and such trips will be only a memory.

To whom?, you may be asking. To whom will they be only a memory?

Or perhaps the earth will continue to exist and make trips around the sun but they will be significantly longer or significantly shorter than at present. The planet Mercury orbits the sun once every 88 earth-days. The planet Neptune, on the other hand, orbits the sun once every 164.8 earth-years. Why not us? What would our lives be like in other scenarios?

Well, for one thing, on Neptune we definitely wouldn't be singing "Fast away the old year passes" and our auld lang synes would be very auld indeed. And in the southern parts of the United States of Mercury, would we be eating black-eyed peas and collard greens for good luck in the New Year every three earth-months or doing something far more exotic?

It's the stuff out of which science-fiction novels are born.

Perhaps you will write one in 2023.

Trust me, stranger things have happened, even stranger than this, my final post of 2022.

Happy New Year to each and every one of you.