Countdowns are a useful way to build up tension. Even if it is not a space rocket preparing for launch after years of mathematics and physics nerds adding up numbers. After every Timeout in the Indian Premier League twice every innings, the entire stadium shouts along to the dwindling numbers in expectation of something extraordinary to happen. Usually it is the fall of a wicket with the batsman’s flow, whatever little of it was accomplished in the 6-8 overs before the commercial needs of the sport stepped in, completely destroyed. Ordinary lives need some sprinkling of hope and the reset offered by the beginning or end of a countdown is just that. The anticipation towards the New Year, the official worldwide one, beginning at 12:01 on 1st January is another such event - created more out of denial of boredom than dreams of drastic change.
Getting AI James Joyce to rewrite the same:
Countdowns, my dear reader, those ephemeral markers in the grand tapestry of existence, weave their silent magic. Not merely for the celestial behemoths—those rockets, their fiery trajectories etched by the ink of equations and the fervor of physicists. No, no! Even within the amphitheater of cricket, where the crowd’s roar mingles with the dwindling numerals, a drama unfolds. The batsman, that fleeting maestro of willow and leather, dances upon the precipice. His rhythm, painstakingly spun over six to eight overs, shatters like glass against the commercial tide. Ordinary lives, oh how they yearn! They crave the sprinkle of hope, the reset button pressed at the cusp of beginnings or the brink of endings. And behold, the global New Year, its arrival marked at 12:01 on the first day of January, emerges not from grandiose dreams but from the quiet rebellion against monotony.
[https://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2024/04/countdowns.html]
