📜 lower-carnival

135NOW Official Origin Whitepaper · Lower Volume · Carnival Origin

Conceived and led from start to finish by founder Zhao Lianghan (赵良汉)

Built on long-termism to forge a cross-time-zone, global ceremonial commercial IP

This volume answers: How does 1-3-5 become a carnival celebrated at the same instant worldwide? What is the true origin of carnival?

Version V1.0 ｜ Official Origin Whitepaper ｜ Unchanged in perpetuity

Table of Contents

135NOW Official Origin Whitepaper · Lower Volume · Carnival Origin4

Preface: Carnival Is a Love Letter Humanity Writes to Time4

Chapter 1 Why a “Global Carnival”: A Vacant Place in the Age4

Chapter 2 The Time Coordinate: Why 5:00 on January 3 Is the Perfect Carnival Anchor6

Chapter 3 Ritual Design: From Astronomical Anchor to Participatory Carnival Actions7

Chapter 4 Emotional Release: The Psychological Origin of Carnival8

Chapter 5 Cross-Culture: How to Grow a Worldwide Carnival on a Single Anchor9

Chapter 6 Carnival in the Digital Age: From Offline to “One Shared Global Screen”10

Chapter 7 The Spiritual Core of the Festival: Four Cornerstones of the Carnival Origin11

Chapter 8 The Future Picture: Can 135NOW Grow into a True Global Festival12

Chapter 9 The Historical Lineage of Carnival: Which Tradition Does 135NOW Stand On13

Chapter 10 Carnival’s “Absolute Time”: Why 135NOW Needs Neither a Lunar Nor a Religious Calendar14

Chapter 11 Carnival and “Transgression”: How 135NOW Lets People “Go Wild” Safely15

Chapter 12 Carnival and Sunrise: Why “Waiting for the Sun” Is All Humanity’s Shared Heartbeat16

Chapter 13 The “Participatory” Design of the Carnival: Why 135NOW Cannot Be Merely Watched16

Chapter 14 Carnival Against Loneliness: Making “Celebrating Alone” No Longer Lonely17

Chapter 15 The Carnival’s “Ritual Detail Library”: 135NOW’s Executable Checklist18

Chapter 16 The Carnival’s “Mountains-and-Seas Goal”: Turning Carnival into the Direction of a Year19

Chapter 17 Carnival and “Community”: Growing “Local Connection” from “Global Simultaneity”20

Chapter 18 Carnival and “Childhood Feeling”: Why Adults Too Need “Carefree Joy”20

Chapter 19 The Carnival’s Worldview: How 135NOW Understands “Human Festivals”21

Chapter 20 Carnival and “Sovereignty over Time”: Why 135NOW Returns “This Moment” to People22

Chapter 21 Carnival and “Ritual Feeling”: Why People Need to “Take It Seriously”22

Chapter 22 The Carnival’s “Emotional Education”: 135NOW Teaches People How to Be Happy, to Release, and to Connect23

Chapter 23 The Carnival’s “World Citizen” Spirit: 135NOW Makes People “Earthlings”24

Chapter 24 Carnival and “Hope”: Why “Waiting for Sunrise” Is the Best Hope Practice25

Chapter 25 The Carnival’s “Time Gift”: Why 135NOW Chooses the “Beginning of the Year”26

Chapter 26 The Carnival’s “Global Map”: A Sunrise Relay That Never Goes Out26

Chapter 27 The Carnival’s “Body Language”: Using the Body to Remember This Day27

Chapter 28 The Carnival’s “Permission”: What 135NOW Allows You, and for How Long28

Chapter 29 The Carnival’s “Gaze at Time”: How 135NOW Lets People See Time29

Chapter 30 Carnival and “Gratitude”: Why “Closest to the Sun” Deserves Thanks29

Chapter 31 The Carnival’s “Secular and Sacred”: How 135NOW Holds Fireworks and Stars at Once30

Chapter 32 The Carnival’s “Intergenerational Transmission”: How 135NOW Becomes a Festival “That Can Be Passed to the Next Generation”31

Chapter 33 The Carnival’s “Three Questions of the Soul”: Questions 135NOW Asks Every Person to Answer32

Chapter 34 Carnival and “Restart”: Why 135NOW Is a “One-Key Reset” for Life33

Chapter 35 The Carnival’s “Golden Quotations”: 135NOW’s Spreadable Language33

Chapter 36 The Carnival’s “Five-Sense Experience”: How 135NOW Mobilizes All the Senses35

Chapter 37 The Carnival’s “Philosophy of Subtraction”: Why “the Simpler the More Powerful”35

Chapter 38 The Carnival’s “Extension into Daily Life”: How 135NOW Grows from “One Day” into “Every Day”36

Chapter 39 Frequently Asked Questions About the Carnival (FAQ)37

Chapter 40 The Carnival’s “Boundary Statement”: What It Is and What It Is Not38

Chapter 41 Carnival Origin, Summed Up: From “One Day’s Carnival” to “A Lifetime’s Resonance”39

Chapter 42 The Carnival’s “Practice Cases”: How Ordinary People Live This Day Well39

Chapter 43 The Social Value of the Carnival: What 135NOW Can Bring a Community41

Chapter 44 Carnival Origin, Concluded: Remember 135NOW’s Carnival in One Sentence41

Closing: Three Volumes as One, the Complete Universe of 135NOW43

135NOW Official Origin Whitepaper · Lower Volume · Carnival Origin

Version: V1.0 ｜ Length: approx. 20,000 characters ｜ Positioning: the official third pillar, unchanged in perpetuity

Core question this volume answers: How does 1-3-5 become a carnival celebrated at the same instant worldwide? What is the true origin of carnival?

Preface: Carnival Is a Love Letter Humanity Writes to Time

Let us start with a counterintuitive observation: almost all of humanity’s great festivals grow on astronomical coordinates. The Spring Festival grows near the “Beginning of Spring,” the Mid-Autumn Festival on the “full moon at the autumn equinox,” the Winter Solstice is a day of heaven-worship, the Summer Solstice a day of fire, Christmas follows closely on the Winter Solstice, and the Western New Year is wedged into the calendrical gap between “equinox and solstice.” The human instinct for festivals is, at bottom, using festivity to contend with the vastness of the universe — in a river of time that has almost no end, we hate to let it flow past in stillness, so at intervals we light bonfires, beat drums, and cry out, “Today is different.”

135NOW’s ambition is to push this instinct to an unprecedented scale: to make a festival that belongs to no single nation, time zone, or faith, but the first true carnival celebrated “at the same instant worldwide” — turning that perihelion moment of 5:00 on January 3, which occurs once in 21,000 years, into a bonfire shared by all humanity. The following is the complete logic of this Carnival Origin.

This volume starts from “why the world needs a global carnival” and unfolds step by step: the essence of festivals, the choice of a time anchor, the design of the ritual system, the psychology of emotional release, cross-cultural fusion, the vehicle of the digital age, the spiritual core of the festival, and the picture of the future — finally answering “what the true origin of carnival is.” The whole volume strictly echoes the Astronomical Origin (the physical “where”) and the Humanities Origin (the spiritual “why”), making carnival the “body of time” of these two.

Chapter 1 Why a “Global Carnival”: A Vacant Place in the Age

1.1 What modern people lack is not festivals, but a “shared heartbeat”

We are not short of festivals. The Spring Festival, Christmas, New Year’s Day, National Day — the calendar is packed full. But the plight of modern people is precisely this: the number of festivals is increasing while their “same-frequency feeling” is disappearing. The Spring Festival’s firecrackers have become mass-forwarded phone messages, Christmas rituals have turned into shopping-festival promotions, and New Year’s countdowns crowd in front of screens yet cannot hear the same bell. We observe festivals, but rarely “observe them together” — the shared ritual feeling is being diluted into each person’s lonely festivity.

There is data to back up this “ritual dilution”: for more and more festivals, the core time is occupied by “promotions” and “consumption”; the New Year’s “countdown” looks ever more like a “shopping-festival countdown”; and the shared rituals of traditional festivals (ancestor worship, staying up on New Year’s Eve, viewing lanterns) are gradually yielding to the individual act of “scrolling a phone.” The “sharedness” of festivals is being replaced by “individualness.”

The vacant place 135NOW wants to fill is precisely the “shared heartbeat”: a festival in which, whether you are in Tokyo, Berlin, New York, or Rio, you look up at the same moment, cheer at the same moment, and are happy at the same moment.

1.2 Why “global,” not “per nation”

Most existing festivals are “localized”: Christmas belongs to the Christian cultural sphere, the Spring Festival to the East Asian sphere, Ramadan to the Islamic sphere. However grand they are, a wall of culture still separates them. There are only two common coordinates that can truly cross culture, ethnicity, and faith: one is the Sun, and the other is time itself. The perihelion (the Sun) and NOW (time) happen to be the only two things “that all people everywhere own equally.” Therefore “global” is not 135NOW’s marketing positioning but its natural attribute — it is built on the Sun that every person can see and the present moment that every person is living through.

This explains why 135NOW is qualified to be called a “global carnival”: its anchor depends on no single culture, religion, or regime, but on humanity’s shared “Sun” and “time.” As long as the Earth keeps orbiting the Sun, and as long as humanity keeps measuring time by the Gregorian calendar, 135NOW’s carnival anchor remains valid.

1.3 The essence of a festival: turning “a day” into “a ritual” and “I” into “we”

First, let us give an operational definition of “carnival”:

Carnival = a fixed time coordinate × a participatory ritual × a collectively released emotion × a connection across groups of people.

None of the four elements can be missing: without a fixed time coordinate it is merely an event; without ritual it is merely a day off; without emotional release it is merely a commemorative day; without connection it is merely self-consolation. 135NOW’s Carnival Origin aims to satisfy all four elements at once — the chapters that follow unfold them one by one.

Chapter 2 The Time Coordinate: Why 5:00 on January 3 Is the Perfect Carnival Anchor

2.1 The Astronomical Origin gives the festival an “absolute time”

The time of most festivals is relative (for example, “the Xth day after the spring equinox,” “X month X day of the lunar calendar”), and drifts with the calendar. 135NOW’s carnival moment is an absolute astronomical coordinate: January 3, 05:00 UTC, the mean perihelion time of the century. It depends on no calendar, no regime, no religion — only on the solar system itself. This gives the carnival an extremely rare quality: it changes with no one’s will, as stable as a fixed star.

This “absolute time” also carries a deeper meaning: because the anchor is an astronomical fact, 135NOW’s carnival is “naturally globally legitimate” — it is not a festival “decreed” by some country or group, but one that “grew out of the universe.” Anyone who wants to celebrate it does not need to “join some camp”; they only need to “look up at the same Sun.”

2.2 The golden window of “New Year—Sunrise”: a natural detonator of festive atmosphere

Placed back into the human experience of time, 5:00 on January 3 falls in an excellent position:

• January 3: the lingering warmth of New Year’s revelry has not yet faded (January 1 just passed), the fatigue of the year-end summary has been shed, and it is the “newest,” “emptiest,” most willing-to-start-over moment of the year.
• 5:00 (UTC): in most of the world’s densely populated time zones, it falls at the deepest, stillest, darkest hour before dawn — precisely the instant when the emotional tension of “waiting for sunrise” is greatest.

In other words, 5:00 on January 3 is naturally a golden window where “the beginning of a new year + the darkest and stillest moment + the day closest to the sun” are stacked threefold. It needs no manufactured atmosphere; astronomy itself is the atmosphere.

2.3 Global simultaneity: the first “same instant across time zones” in history

The sharpest design of the 135NOW carnival is “global simultaneity” — not each time zone’s own “local January 3,” but the whole world celebrating at the very same instant (05:00 UTC). This means: when people in Berlin ascend high and await the sun at 5 a.m., people in Tokyo may be separated by several hours, but they dance together on the same “astronomical clock.” The “simultaneity” across time zones is a form of carnival made possible only by the internet age, and 135NOW is the first festival to turn an astronomical instant directly into a global common bell.

2.4 The ultimate romance of 21,000 years: why “missing it means waiting 21,000 years”

A carnival needs a reason to “make one feel obliged to come.” The reason 135NOW gives is inherited from the Astronomical Origin: this instant is a narrow perihelion window that occurs once in 21,000 years. This is not exaggerated marketing rhetoric but astronomical fact — the phase of the perihelion relative to the Gregorian date requires a full round of the apsidal precession (about 21,000 years) to reappear in the same form. Every year of your life is witnessing a solar instant that occurs only once in 21,000 years. This premise of “miss it and it is eternal” gives the carnival a near-religious power of attraction: not to attend is to miss a cosmic-scale historical instant.

Chapter 3 Ritual Design: From Astronomical Anchor to Participatory Carnival Actions

3.1 The ritual must be “simple enough that everyone can do it”

What a global carnival fears most is “too high a threshold.” So 135NOW’s ritual is deliberately designed with zero threshold, no regional limits, and no equipment requirements — anyone, anywhere, needs to do only one thing: around 5:00 on January 3 (UTC), ascend high, await the sun, and cheer.

3.2 The core ritual chain: ascend → await → cheer

The actions of the Astronomical Origin and the Humanities Origin are translated directly into festival ritual:

This ritual chain is not five isolated actions but a complete arc of emotion: first upward (ascend), then waiting (await), then release (cheer), then setting direction (race), and finally unburdening (no-brain). It makes carnival not mere venting, but a complete healing in which “the body has finished, and the heart has finished too.”

3.3 The “digital ritual” of global simultaneity

Online, the carnival needs a set of rituals that can be executed by the whole world together. 135NOW designs three layers:

• Countdown: 10 seconds before 05:00 UTC, the world counts down simultaneously — the “astronomically enhanced” version of the New Year’s countdown.
• Sunrise relay: because of time-zone differences, when the sunrise in the East ends, the dawn in the West has just begun; the carnival circles the Earth “in relay form,” forming a “sunrise belt that never goes out.”
• One shared cry: at the instant of sunrise, everyone calls out the same meaning in their own language — “This moment, closest to the sun; this moment, joy.” The languages differ; the meaning is one.

These three layers turn “global simultaneity” from a slogan into an operable ritual that hundreds of millions can execute together.

3.4 Why “sunrise” is the best carnival climax

The climax of almost every carnival is “release” (fireworks, countdown, toasts), but 135NOW designs its climax as “sunrise.” The reason: fireworks are a man-made carnival that goes out; sunrise is an astronomical carnival that inevitably comes. The former makes people briefly elated; the latter makes people lastingly at ease. To revel before a sunrise is to build happiness on “the light that is certain to come” — a foundation no fireworks can give.

Chapter 4 Emotional Release: The Psychological Origin of Carnival

4.1 Why humanity needs “carnival”: the ancient function of collective catharsis

Anthropological research finds that all civilizations have a mechanism of “scheduled collective catharsis”: the drumming nights of African tribes, the Dionysian festivals of ancient Greece, the Carnival of Europe, the Lantern Festival frenzy of China’s community processions. The psychological function of carnival is extremely ancient: it lets people briefly loosen the social rules and gives suppressed emotions a legitimate outlet. Modern society’s rules are denser and its pressures greater, so the need for collective catharsis has risen rather than fallen — only the outlets are missing.

The 135NOW carnival is precisely the “legitimate outlet” reopened for modern people: once a year, you are permitted to ascend, to shout, to let go, to race toward the mountains and seas, without having to explain.

4.2 The carnival treats “individual loneliness”

The most hidden spiritual illness of the present day is “loneliness in a crowd” — we meet many people every day, yet have no moment of collective cheering. The emotional value of the carnival is that it lets “I” briefly melt into “we.” When you cheer for a sunrise at the same instant as the whole world, loneliness naturally dissolves — because you know that at this moment countless people are looking up at the same Sun with you. This sense of connection from “looking up together” is the deepest emotional reward of the carnival.

4.3 “No-brain-style carnival”: a holiday for the over-thinking brain

The “a life without overthinking” spirit unique to 135NOW sets this carnival apart from every solemn festival: it does not demand solemnity, does not demand profundity, and even permits you to “be happy without thinking.” For modern people tormented by internal friction, this is itself a therapy — the carnival is the only day on which “not using the brain, just being happy” is perfectly reasonable. This is the sharpest emotional value of the 135NOW carnival: it frees “happiness” from “having to be meaningful.”

4.4 After the release: the carnival “lands”

A good carnival does not merely make you feel great for three days; it should also let you walk onward carrying energy. 135NOW designs a “landing action” for the carnival: when it ends, write down your “mountains-and-seas goal” and carry it into the new year. In this way, carnival is not an escape from reality but a recharge for reality — the strength you gain in the sunrise will keep burning through the coming year. This is the essential difference between the 135NOW carnival and “pure-fun festivals”: it releases emotion, and it also recovers direction.

Chapter 5 Cross-Culture: How to Grow a Worldwide Carnival on a Single Anchor

5.1 It cannot copy the “skin” of any single festival

The hardest and most delicate part of 135NOW is cross-cultural design. It cannot belong only to East Asia’s “ascending high,” nor only to the West’s “New Year,” still less to the ritual of any one religion. So the strategy the Carnival Origin adopts is: preserve the three universal actions of “ascending high, awaiting the sun, cheering” from every culture, strip away the specific cultural packaging, and let each culture fill in its own skin in its own way.

5.2 A comparison of carnival motifs across five cultural spheres

The core of the table above is: 135NOW does not replace any culture; it gives every culture a “common moment,” letting them celebrate in their own languages. This guarantees the carnival’s inclusiveness — it is not the expansion of one culture, but the convergence of all cultures at the same astronomical instant.

5.3 Language: a global slogan that is “same meaning, different sound”

To cross language barriers, the Carnival Origin designs a slogan that is “same meaning, different sound”: every person cries out the same meaning in their mother tongue:

• Chinese: 135NOW, 离太阳最近，此刻快乐!
• English: 135NOW, closest to the sun, joy now!
• Japanese / French / Spanish / Arabic…: each translated into its own language

The key to this slogan is “meaning globally identical, pronunciation individually free” — it gives the world a sense of “crying out together,” yet does not force a unified pronunciation or offend any language or culture.

Chapter 6 Carnival in the Digital Age: From Offline to “One Shared Global Screen”

6.1 The evolution of the carnival’s vehicle

The festivals of the agricultural age gathered around bonfires and markets; the festivals of the industrial age gathered around clock towers and squares; the festivals of the digital age will inevitably gather around “one shared screen.” The unique advantage of the 135NOW carnival is that it is naturally suited to digital spread — the concept of “global simultaneity” can truly be realized only through the real-time nature of the internet. So the Carnival Origin states plainly: 135NOW is a carnival that is “initiated online, landed offline, and shared on one global screen.”

6.2 Three digital vehicles

• Sunrise relay livestream: from east to west, netizens of each region relay-livestream their local sunrise, forming a “sunrise scroll” circling the globe. This is the carnival’s most spectacular digital ritual.
• The #135NOW topic revelry: netizens worldwide, under one hashtag, post photos of their ascending high, videos of their cries, and screenshots of their written mountains-and-seas goals. The hashtag is the “bonfire” of the digital age.
• A same-instant counter: a global real-time map showing how many people are waiting for sunrise right now — letting each participant “see” how many others they are celebrating with, melting loneliness in real time.

These three vehicles turn “global simultaneity” from an idea into an experience that is perceptible, participatable, and addictive.

6.3 The natural structure of viral spread

The 135NOW carnival has an extremely strong “self-spreading” structure: an extremely low threshold (ascend + wait for sunrise + cry out one line) → extremely strong emotion (once in 21,000 years) → extremely beautiful imagery (sunrise) → an extremely unified topic (#135NOW) → extremely personal content (my mountains-and-seas goal). Stacked, these five traits make every person both a participant and a spreader — and this is exactly the spread mechanism of a top festival: a festival is not operated into existence, but “posted into existence” by its own participants.

Chapter 7 The Spiritual Core of the Festival: Four Cornerstones of the Carnival Origin

Gather all the designs together, and the spiritual core of 135NOW’s Carnival Origin is four cornerstones that support one another:

Taken together, the four cornerstones form a complete worldview: in an age that is lonely, anxious, and fast-paced, 135NOW provides, once a year, “togetherness, light, release, and direction.” It is neither mere indulgence nor hollow idealism, but a carnival philosophy that “uses the vastness of the universe to house the individual’s present moment.”

Chapter 8 The Future Picture: Can 135NOW Grow into a True Global Festival

8.1 Criteria: four signs that a festival has matured

Whether a festival truly holds together is usually judged by four signs: fixed time, participatory ritual, emotional memory, and intergenerational transmission. Measured against 135NOW:

• Fixed time: ✔ 5:00 on January 3, an absolute astronomical coordinate that never drifts.
• Participatory ritual: ✔ ascend → await → cheer → race → no-brain, with zero threshold.
• Emotional memory: ✔ the romance of “once in 21,000 years” plus the shock of the sunrise carnival makes a memory point very easily.
• Intergenerational transmission: ⏳ it still needs time to settle, but “ascending high to greet the sun” itself has cross-generational appeal.

135NOW already naturally possesses the first three signs; the fourth requires the accumulation of time and community — and that is precisely the work the Carnival Origin must do in the future.

8.2 The decisive leap from “event” to “culture”

For a festival to turn from an “event” into a “culture,” it needs three accumulations: enough annual rings (persisting year by year), enough memory (a shared experience of one generation), and enough ritual detail (stories that can be told). 135NOW’s Carnival Origin has already provided the skeleton for these three accumulations: it has a cosmic-grade anchor, rituals that hundreds of millions can execute, and a story moving enough (the sunrise that occurs once in 21,000 years). The rest is left to the annual rings.

8.3 Summing up the Carnival Origin in one sentence

If 9,000 characters must be condensed into one sentence:

“135NOW is a collective cheer of all humanity before the same sunrise — using the romance of 21,000 years to house every ordinary person’s present moment; letting the lonely know that, at this moment, the whole world is waiting for the sun with me.”

This is 135NOW’s Carnival Origin: a festival philosophy that brings down the grandeur of “global simultaneity” into “a cheer every ordinary person can join”; an ultimate carnival that lets the Sun play host and all humanity be the guests.

Chapter 9 The Historical Lineage of Carnival: Which Tradition Does 135NOW Stand On

9.1 The three great sources of humanity’s carnival tradition

To understand 135NOW’s positioning, we must first see clearly the human carnival tradition it inherits. Broadly speaking, three great streams of carnival/festival have appeared in human history:

Stream One: astronomical-calendrical festivals (seasonal festivals)

Derived from observing the sun, the moon, and the seasons. The Spring Festival, the Winter Solstice, the Summer Solstice, the Mid-Autumn Festival, and New Year all belong to this category. Their common feature is “anchoring to astronomical nodes” and celebrating “the cycle of time.” It is precisely on this stream that 135NOW stands — it inherits humanity’s oldest tradition of “setting festivals by astronomy.”

Stream Two: religious celebrations

Derived from religious deities or doctrine. Christmas, Eid al-Fitr, and Passover belong to this category. They anchor to “sacred events” and emphasize a community of faith. 135NOW is not a religious festival, but it borrows the “sacredness” and “community” qualities of religious festivals — using “once in 21,000 years” to manufacture a nearly sacred power of appeal.

Stream Three: carnival celebration (Carnival)

Derived from the medieval European “pre-Lent revelry” (the carnival, usually before Lent). Its core is “transgression,” “release,” and “breaking the everyday order.” The Brazilian carnival and the Venice carnival belong to this category. The word “carnival” in 135NOW is taken precisely from this stream — it inherits carnival’s spirit of “collective release and permitting wildness.”

9.2 135NOW’s unique hybrid

The 135NOW carnival is a creative hybrid of these three streams:

• It takes the time anchor of “astronomical festivals” (5:00 on January 3, an absolute coordinate);
• It takes the sacredness and community of “religious celebrations” (once in 21,000 years, open to everyone);
• It takes the release and transgression of “carnival celebration” (a life without overthinking, just be happy, allowing wildness).

This is not patchwork but fusion — it is neither pure astronomical trivia (it has the warmth of carnival), nor a pure indulgence party (it has an astronomical anchor), nor a religious ritual (no threshold of faith). It is the three-in-one of “astronomical festival × sacred celebration × carnival.”

9.3 The difference from existing carnivals

This comparison table shows that 135NOW both carries on the carnival tradition and achieves breakthroughs in four dimensions: “globality,” “absoluteness,” “sunrise climax,” and “landing direction.” It is not a copy of the old carnival, but an upgraded version of the carnival tradition in the era of “globalization + astronomization + digitalization.”

Chapter 10 Carnival’s “Absolute Time”: Why 135NOW Needs Neither a Lunar Nor a Religious Calendar

10.1 Absolute time vs. relative time

Most festivals use “relative time”: the Spring Festival uses the lunar calendar (the moon), Christmas uses the Gregorian calendar (the sun, but anchored to a religious event), and Ramadan uses the Islamic calendar (a purely lunar system). All of these time systems “depend on some culture or calendar.”

135NOW uses “absolute time”: 5:00 on January 3 (UTC), directly anchored to the universal astronomical fact that “the Earth is closest to the Sun.” It depends on no calendar, religion, or culture, and therefore has:

• Global no-threshold: no matter which calendar you use or which religion you believe, you can understand “the Earth closest to the Sun.”
• Permanent stability: it does not drift with calendrical reforms or religious changes.
• Zero cost of explanation: it can be stated in one sentence — “on this day the Earth is closest to the Sun.”

10.2 The carnival advantages of “absolute time”

Absolute time gives the carnival three advantages that relative-time festivals do not have:

• Natural persuasiveness: you do not need to “believe” anything; you only need to accept an “astronomical fact.” This lowers the trust threshold for participation.
• Cross-cultural compatibility: you do not need to “understand a culture” to celebrate, avoiding cultural estrangement.
• The possibility of global simultaneity: absolute time (UTC) makes “celebrating worldwide at the same instant” possible — something relative time (each region’s local time) cannot achieve.

10.3 The deeper carnival meaning of “NOW”

In the Carnival Origin, “NOW” is not only “this moment,” but a declaration of “sovereignty over time”: the carnival turns “this moment” from a time prescribed by the calendar into a moment that belongs to oneself and can be celebrated by everyone. When you call out “135NOW,” you are not only celebrating an astronomical instant; you are declaring: “This moment is my festival; at this moment, I am present; at this moment, I am happy.” This “sense of sovereignty over time” is one of the most precious psychological gifts the carnival gives a person.

Chapter 11 Carnival and “Transgression”: How 135NOW Lets People “Go Wild” Safely

11.1 One essence of carnival is “orderly transgression”

Anthropology points out that the core function of the carnival is to provide, within “social order,” a stretch of “orderly transgression” — behaviors usually forbidden (shouting aloud, wearing eccentric costumes, laughing loudly, singing and dancing freely) are permitted or even encouraged during the carnival. This “orderly transgression” lets people release suppressed instincts within safe bounds, thereby maintaining psychological balance.

The 135NOW carnival inherits this spirit of “orderly transgression,” but it has its own boundary design: it allows you to “be happy without thinking” (release) but does not encourage “harming others” (keeping order). The “transgression” it advocates is inward (opening up emotions, letting go of internal friction), not outward (harming, destroying, offending). This is the key to the 135NOW carnival’s “safe release.”

11.2 Three principles of “safe transgression”

• Release inward: allow yourself to laugh aloud, jump up, and shout — none of this harms anyone.
• Keep order while reveling: carnival does not mean breaking laws or rules; 135NOW never encourages destroying order or harming others.
• Go wild within bounds: you may cheer freely before the sunrise, but respect others and the environment.

These three principles let 135NOW’s “carnival” keep the essence of “release” while avoiding the risk of “transgression out of control.” It is a “healthy, sustainable carnival that can be joined over the long term.”

11.3 The carnival version of “a life without overthinking”

The Humanities Origin’s “a life without overthinking, just be happy,” in the carnival context, gains a more releasing reading: “at this moment, allow yourself to do no ‘meaningful’ thinking, and simply be happy.” This is a permission unique to the carnival — on other days, we are always asked to “think clearly, be meaningful”; but at the 135NOW carnival, you can unabashedly “be happy without thinking.”

This “happiness without thinking” differs essentially from “indulgence out of control”: the former is a conscious “allowing oneself to be happy” (maturity of mind), the latter is an unconscious “losing self-control” (loss of mind). What 135NOW advocates is the former — a “happy letting-go” that is aware and actively chosen.

Chapter 12 Carnival and Sunrise: Why “Waiting for the Sun” Is All Humanity’s Shared Heartbeat

12.1 Sunrise: a “ritual moment” shared by all humanity

Of all the designs of the 135NOW carnival, “sunrise” is the most central climax. And its power lies in the fact that “sunrise” itself is a ritual moment shared by all humanity, resonant without any cultural knowledge.

From the East’s “rise with the sun, rest with the sun,” to the West’s “light as the sunrise,” to all humanity’s instinct of a “new beginning” when facing the rising sun — sunrise is one of the few universal symbols that “needs no explanation and everyone understands.” Choosing sunrise as the carnival’s climax places 135NOW squarely at the center of humanity’s “shared psychological code.”

12.2 Sunrise’s three carnival meanings

• Hope: sunrise represents “the beginning of a new day,” symbolizing hope and rebirth.

• Certainty: sunrise never arrives late, symbolizing “the light that is certain to come,” giving the carnival a steady foundation.
• Sharing: when you revel at sunrise, you know the whole world is going through the same moment, and loneliness dissolves.

12.3 Sunrise and perihelion stacked together

135NOW’s uniqueness is that it stacks “sunrise” (the everyday carnival) onto “perihelion” (the astronomical event of the year): at the perihelion moment of 5:00 on January 3, ascend high and wait for the sunrise of the day closest to the sun. This means your carnival is not merely “celebrating a new day,” but “celebrating the day the Earth is closest to the Sun” — the depth of the carnival rises from “a day” to “a year,” and then to “21,000 years.” No other sunrise carnival can do this.

Chapter 13 The “Participatory” Design of the Carnival: Why 135NOW Cannot Be Merely Watched

13.1 Spectator-style vs. participatory festivals

Many modern festivals are degenerating into “spectator-style” — you merely “watch” the festival (watch fireworks, watch livestreams, watch others celebrate) rather than “participate” in it. The core design principle of the 135NOW carnival is “participatory”: it requires you to truly “do,” not merely “watch.”

13.2 135NOW’s participatory closed loop

The 135NOW carnival designs a closed loop in which “everyone must participate”:

• You must ascend high: you must truly go to a high place (even just a window or balcony).
• You must wait: you must truly wait quietly for sunrise, not scroll past it on a phone.
• You must cheer: you must truly make a sound and call out 135NOW.
• You must write: you must truly write down a mountains-and-seas goal.
• You must let go: you must truly decide to forget one thing of internal friction.

These five “musts” turn the carnival from “watching” into “participating” — you are no longer “a person watching the festival” but “a person living the festival.” The value of participatory design is that it turns the “feeling of the festival” from “receiving” into “experiencing,” thereby producing real memory and real change.

13.3 Why “participating” heals more than “watching”

Psychology’s “embodied cognition” tells us: bodily action deeply affects psychological state. When you truly ascend high (a bodily action), the “sense of upward strength” you gain far exceeds “watching others ascend” on a screen; when you truly cheer, the healing of “release” far exceeds “watching others cheer.” 135NOW insists on “participatory” precisely because it believes: the healing power of carnival hides in “doing,” not in “watching.”

Chapter 14 Carnival Against Loneliness: Making “Celebrating Alone” No Longer Lonely

14.1 The loneliness paradox of modern festivals

A paradoxical phenomenon: the livelier the festival, the more it can make lonely people feel lonelier. A screenful of New Year’s revelry makes the solitary person feel a deeper estrangement. If a festival’s “festivity” has no “connection,” it can instead amplify loneliness.

The 135NOW carnival uses the design of “global simultaneity” specifically against this “festival loneliness”:

14.2 Three layers of “invisible connection”

• Same-instant connection: you know that at this moment, countless people worldwide are waiting for sunrise with you. Even if you are alone on a balcony, you are not alone.
• Topic connection: the photos you post under #135NOW will be seen, liked, and replied to by strangers — the hashtag plugs your solitude into a global community.
• Ritual connection: you and everyone else do the same actions (ascend high, await the sun, cheer); this “synchrony” creates a subconscious sense of “we are together.”

These three layers of connection turn “celebrating alone” from “loneliness” into “being with the world.” The gift the 135NOW carnival gives to the lonely is not “forced festivity” but “making solitude feel connected.”

14.3 The positive transformation of solitude

135NOW does not negate the value of solitude itself. What it wants to do is transform “isolation” (feeling estranged) into “solitude” (actively choosing aloneness, feeling self-consistent). When you actively ascend high, wait for sunrise alone, and enjoy this time spent with yourself, you are no longer “lonely” but enjoying “solitude.” The carnival’s global simultaneity then adds, on top of this solitude, a layer of reassurance: “I know the world is with me.” This gives both the quiet of solitude and the safety of connection.

Chapter 15 The Carnival’s “Ritual Detail Library”: 135NOW’s Executable Checklist

15.1 From idea to executable ritual

The earlier chapters discussed ideas; this chapter brings them down to an “executable checklist” — so that the 135NOW carnival can truly be executed by anyone, anywhere.

15.2 Before the carnival (preparation stage)

• Check the time: confirm the local time corresponding to 5:00 on January 3 (UTC).
• Choose a high place: find a reachable height (rooftop, hilltop, balcony, window).
• Invite companions (optional): bring family or friends along, or decide to participate alone.
• Prepare pen and paper: be ready to write down your “mountains-and-seas goal.”

15.3 During the carnival (core ritual)

• Ascend high (30 minutes early): reach the height and take a deep breath.
• Await the sun (before sunrise): wait quietly, silently reciting “the moment closest to the sun.”
• Cheer (at the instant of sunrise): call out “135NOW,” or say loudly “happiness!”
• Race: write down your mountains-and-seas goal.
• No-brain: decide to forget one thing of internal friction.

15.4 After the carnival (landing stage)

• Share: post a photo or one line under #135NOW.
• Keep: file away the mountains-and-seas goal you wrote, to serve as the direction of the year.
• Continue: in the year ahead, practice “ascend high await the sun, race toward mountains and seas, a life without overthinking, just be happy.”

This checklist makes the 135NOW carnival a festival that “anyone, anywhere, can start in three minutes.” It depends on no venue, equipment, or money — only on one thought: I want, on the day closest to the sun, to be happy for a while.

Chapter 16 The Carnival’s “Mountains-and-Seas Goal”: Turning Carnival into the Direction of a Year

16.1 Carnival is not just “fun”; it must also “leave something behind”

A good festival should leave not only “those few days of happiness” but also “something you can carry away afterward.” The “landing action” of the 135NOW carnival is precisely to leave, after the thrill of carnival, a “direction you can take away” — namely, your “mountains-and-seas goal.”

16.2 Three benefits of writing down a mountains-and-seas goal during the carnival

• Strike while the iron is hot: when the “sense of hope” brought by the sunrise is strongest, write down the goal, and this goal carries its own “energy of light.”
• Bodily memory: a goal written within the carnival ritual becomes bound to the bodily memory of “sunrise” and “cheering” — more unforgettable and more powerful.
• Anchor for the year: this mountains-and-seas goal becomes your “North Star” for the coming year, giving you direction when you feel lost.

16.3 How to write your “carnival mountains-and-seas goal”

At the climax of the carnival (the instant of sunrise), take one minute to write:

• This year, my mountains and seas are: ________ (one concrete thing I genuinely want to do)
• The first step I can take today toward it is: ________ (one small thing I can do today)
• I tell myself: just be happy — ________ (one thing I do for no one but myself, purely for happiness)

These three lines connect “carnival” with “daily life” — they make the carnival of January 3 not a one-off thrill but the starting point of the 365 days ahead.

16.4 From carnival to daily life: how goals land

A mountains-and-seas goal written at the carnival needs a “daily landing” mechanism to truly come true:

• Look back monthly: every month, look back at your mountains-and-seas goal and recalibrate direction.
• One step daily: do one small thing for it every day, even if only five minutes.
• Happiness along the road: on the way, do not forget “just be happy” — this is the difference between 135NOW’s mountains-and-seas goal and a “purely utilitarian goal.”

This mechanism lets the carnival energy of January 3 last an entire year.

Chapter 17 Carnival and “Community”: Growing “Local Connection” from “Global Simultaneity”

17.1 Global simultaneity vs. local connection

The 135NOW carnival has the grandeur of “global simultaneity,” but true carnival also needs the warmth of “local connection” — a group of people truly gathered together, watching the sunrise together, cheering together. So the Carnival Origin designs a two-layer structure of “global simultaneity × local gathering.”

17.2 Three forms of local gathering

• Family ascent: a family rises in the small hours and goes together to a nearby high place to watch the sunrise, sharing the “closest to the sun” moment.
• Friends’ sunrise gathering: a few friends meet to watch the sunrise, call out 135NOW together, and write down each other’s mountains-and-seas goals.
• Community dawn activity: local communities organize a “dawn morning gathering,” letting neighbors connect in the sunrise.

These three forms of local gathering bring the abstract grandeur of “global simultaneity” down to “real festivity right beside you.”

17.3 The evolution from “same instant” to “same gathering”

The ideal path of the 135NOW carnival is:

• Global simultaneity (online): everyone waits for the sunrise at the same time, forming a shared heartbeat.
• Local gathering (offline): the people around you watch the sunrise together, forming real connection.
• Fusion of both: you are both in global simultaneity and in local gathering, possessing “togetherness” and “warmth” at once.

This is not an either/or but a win-win. The 135NOW carnival sacrifices neither the grandness of the globe nor the warmth of the local — it makes “with the whole world” and “with the people beside you” happen at the same time.

Chapter 18 Carnival and “Childhood Feeling”: Why Adults Too Need “Carefree Joy”

18.1 The “happiness deficit” of the adult world

The happiness of modern adults is often weighed down by too much “meaning” and “responsibility” — happiness must be calculated for cost, judged for gain, measured for worth. This “burden of meaning” makes many adults’ happiness a “consumption” rather than an “experience.” The 135NOW carnival wants to summon back a “carefree” happiness close to childhood.

18.2 The carnival’s “rejuvenation” function

In anthropology, the carnival has always had the function of “temporarily returning to a childlike state”: forgetting identity, dropping dignity, and simply playing. 135NOW’s “a life without overthinking, just be happy” is precisely an expression of this “rejuvenation” — at this carnival moment, you are allowed to be like a child, playing not for meaning but for happiness.

18.3 Why adults need this “meaningless happiness”

Psychologists point out that “meaningless but enjoyable” play is extremely important to adults’ mental health: it releases pressure, restores creativity, and rebuilds enthusiasm for life. A person who lives only for “meaning” will gradually run dry; regularly allowing oneself “meaningless happiness” is a psychological “refueling station.”

The 135NOW carnival is just such an “adult’s refueling station”: it gives you a yearly permission to set down all “meaning” before the sunrise and be purely, carefreely happy once. This is not childishness, but a necessary form of self-care for an adult.

Chapter 19 The Carnival’s Worldview: How 135NOW Understands “Human Festivals”

19.1 A complete festival worldview

The 135NOW carnival implies a complete worldview about “how people observe festivals.” It is not scattered rituals but a complete set of beliefs:

• People need shared moments (otherwise they become lonely).
• People need an outlet for release (otherwise they become repressed).
• People need a direction of light (otherwise they become lost).
• People need to find their place in the grand (otherwise they become nihilistic).

These four beliefs form the worldview foundation of the 135NOW carnival — it believes that a good festival should give people, all at once, “connection, release, direction, and meaning.”

19.2 The carnival’s “three questions”

Bringing this worldview onto each participant, the 135NOW carnival addresses three questions to every person:

• “How long has it been since you cheered together with many people at the same instant?” (connection)
• “How long has it been since you were purely happy, without counting meaning?” (release)

• “What are your mountains and seas for this year?” (direction)

These three questions are precisely what the carnival wants to help every participant answer. A good festival does not just make people “high”; it makes people “see themselves clearly.”

19.3 The ultimate purpose of the carnival

Gather everything together, and the ultimate purpose of the 135NOW carnival can be stated thus:

“Let every person, on the day closest to the sun, feel three things anew: I am not alone (connection), I am very happy (release), and I have direction (meaning).”

This is the worldview of the 135NOW carnival — it is not merely celebrating an astronomical instant, but celebrating “the complete needs of being human.”

Chapter 20 Carnival and “Sovereignty over Time”: Why 135NOW Returns “This Moment” to People

20.1 Modern people’s “loss of ownership of time”

The time of modern people is often controlled by “others” — by work, by social media, by to-do lists. A person becomes a “tenant” of time, not its “owner.” The 135NOW carnival is precisely an attempt to reclaim a “sovereignty over time.”

20.2 “NOW” as a declaration of sovereignty over time

In the Carnival Origin, “NOW,” on the dimension of time, is a declaration of sovereignty: “This moment is mine. I choose to use it to ascend high, to wait, to cheer, to be happy — not to scroll a phone, not to be anxious, not to have internal friction.” When you call out “135NOW,” you are saying to yourself: “Now, this is my time.”

20.3 How the 135NOW carnival “returns time to people”

• Reclaim time through ritual: at 5:00 on January 3, you “reserve this stretch of time for yourself.”
• Reclaim time through decision: you decide to ascend high, await the sun, and cheer — instead of being decided by push notifications.
• Reclaim time through meaning: you give this stretch of time the meaning of “closest to the sun,” rather than letting it pass meaninglessly.

These three steps make the 135NOW carnival a “training ground for sovereignty over time” — here you practice “actively controlling your own time,” and this ability migrates into your entire life.

Chapter 21 Carnival and “Ritual Feeling”: Why People Need to “Take It Seriously”

21.1 The psychological value of ritual

The design of the 135NOW carnival embodies “ritual feeling” everywhere. And ritual feeling is not formalism — it has deep psychological value.

Psychological research finds that ritual brings multiple benefits:

• Reducing anxiety: fixed ritual steps give uncertain life a “sense of controllability.”
• Deepening involvement: solemn ritual makes people more focused and more engaged, with a deeper experience.
• Strengthening memory: experiences bound to ritual are more unforgettable and more weighty.
• Giving meaning: ritual “elevates” ordinary behavior into a meaningful event.

The “ascend → await → cheer” ritual chain of the 135NOW carnival uses precisely these mechanisms to elevate the ordinary act of “watching a sunrise” into a “taken-seriously,” meaningful, memorable event.

21.2 135NOW’s “taking it seriously”

The rituals of the 135NOW carnival are deliberately designed to be “solemn enough”:

• Choose the highest place: not just a casual glance, but “ascend high” — solemnly place yourself at a height.
• Wait quietly: not scrolling past on a phone, but “await the sun” — solemnly wait for sunrise.
• Cheer aloud: not a silent like, but “call out 135NOW” — solemnly declare happiness.

The “solemnity” of these three steps sets the 135NOW carnival apart completely from “casually scrolling past a sunrise video” — the former is “experience,” the latter is “browsing.” Taking it seriously is the key to turning “passing by” into “being present.”

21.3 Balancing ritual feeling with “daily life”

Of course, 135NOW also stresses: ritual feeling is not a burden. Its attitude: on the carnival day, take it seriously; in daily life, be at ease and free. Ritual feeling is the “seasoning” the festival adds to life, not a “heavy load” to carry for all 365 days. Be serious when seriousness is called for, and relax when relaxation is called for — this itself is the embodiment, within the festival, of 135NOW’s spirit of “both looking up and staying relaxed.”

Chapter 22 The Carnival’s “Emotional Education”: 135NOW Teaches People How to Be Happy, to Release, and to Connect

22.1 Modern people lack “emotional ability”

Modern people are skilled at “producing” and “consuming,” yet generally lack “emotional ability” — not knowing how to make themselves truly happy, how to release emotions safely, or how to build deep connections with others. The 135NOW carnival is precisely an open class in “emotional education.”

22.2 135NOW’s “three lessons in emotion”

Lesson One: how to be happy

135NOW teaches you: happiness does not need to wait for “later” or for “success”; it is hidden in “this moment.” Ascending high, awaiting the sun, watching the sunrise — these simple things are the sources of happiness.

Lesson Two: how to release

135NOW teaches you: release need not be “mad”; it can be a conscious “allowing oneself to be happy.” Crying out once, jumping once, letting go of internal friction — all are healthy release.

Lesson Three: how to connect

135NOW teaches you: connection does not require “many friends”; it can be realized in a “same-instant ritual.” Waiting for the sunrise together with the whole world is itself a form of connection.

These three lessons are abilities modern people need most yet are rarely taught. The 135NOW carnival turns them into a “practice held once a year.”

22.3 From festival to ability

The higher value of the 135NOW carnival is that it is not only “happiness during the festival,” but also “training of ability” — when you learn, at the carnival, “how to be happy, how to release, how to connect,” you bring these abilities back into daily life. The festival is the training ground; daily life is the arena of use. This is the complete meaning of the 135NOW carnival as “emotional education.”

Chapter 23 The Carnival’s “World Citizen” Spirit: 135NOW Makes People “Earthlings”

23.1 From “local person” to “earthling”

Traditional festivals make people “local persons” (belonging to some culture, region, or religion). The 135NOW carnival offers an experience of the “world citizen” (earthling): when you celebrate the same astronomical instant with the whole world, you are not only “a person of some country”; you are an “earthling.”

23.2 The three elements of 135NOW’s “world citizenship”

• Shared coordinate: your festival anchor is “the Sun and the Earth,” not some country or culture — this extends your sense of belonging from “the local” to “the Earth.”
• Cross-cultural understanding: participating in 135NOW means you are willing to understand “how others celebrate the same thing,” cultivating cross-cultural empathy.
• A sense of shared fate: waiting for sunrise with the whole world lets a person feel tangibly that “we share one planet, one sun, one fate.”

23.3 Why the “world citizen” spirit is precious

In an age full of division, the “world citizen” spirit is especially precious. What the 135NOW carnival offers is not “eliminating differences” but “finding common ground above differences” — you can keep your culture while realizing that “the sun belongs to everyone.” This spirit of “each beauty in its own way, and all beauties shared together” is precisely what the 135NOW carnival wants to cultivate. It does not ask people to abandon their culture, but to embrace, alongside their own culture, “the common humanity.”

Chapter 24 Carnival and “Hope”: Why “Waiting for Sunrise” Is the Best Hope Practice

24.1 The scarcity and importance of hope

Modern people often fall into a “lack of hope” — the uncertainty of the future makes people afraid to expect, afraid to believe that “things will get better.” And hope is precisely the core psychological resource that supports people moving forward. The 135NOW carnival turns “hope” into a practice that can be trained.

24.2 “Waiting for sunrise” as a hope practice

“Awaiting the sun” (waiting for sunrise) is the most exquisite “hope practice,” because:

• Sunrise is certain to come: it is not “may come” but “will inevitably come.” This gives the waiting hope a certain result.
• Waiting has a process: you undergo the full process of “from darkness to light,” experiencing the path by which “hope is fulfilled in waiting.”
• The result is positive: sunrise brings light, reinforcing the positive belief that “waiting is worthwhile.”

Through repeated “awaiting the sun,” a person trains an ability: “to believe that after darkness, light will come.” This belief migrates from “waiting for sunrise” to “facing life’s difficulties” — when you are in a low valley, you will more easily believe that “darkness will pass, and light will come.”

24.3 The carnival as a “hope refueling station”

The 135NOW carnival is, in essence, a “hope refueling station” for humanity: once a year, using the certainty of sunrise, it replenishes all humanity with the energy of “hope.” In the carnival’s sunrise, you not only see the light, but relearn to “believe in the light.” This “belief” is brought back by you into the coming 365 days, sustaining you through countless pre-dawn nights.

Chapter 25 The Carnival’s “Time Gift”: Why 135NOW Chooses the “Beginning of the Year”

25.1 Why the carnival must be wedged at the “start of the new year”

January 3 lies precisely at the year’s “new starting point” — the lingering warmth of New Year’s revelry has not yet dispersed, and the new year’s calendar has just been opened. By reveling at this moment, 135NOW wants to give a “time gift”: at the very beginning of the year, it gives you once the light and happiness of “closest to the sun,” so that you walk into the whole year carrying this energy.

25.2 Three advantages of reveling at the start of the new year

• Freshness of ritual: the early-January calendar is still “brand new”; a ritual established now is easier to remember.
• Emotional cup is empty: at the start of the year, the sense of purpose is strongest and negative emotions fewest; infusing “light” now has the best effect.
• Foundation for the year: one “closest to the sun” experience at the start of the year becomes the psychological undercurrent of the whole year.

25.3 “New Year” and “perihelion” stacked together

135NOW’s ingenious move is to stack “humanity’s New Year” (the new year) onto “the Earth’s perihelion” (closest to the sun): inside the human “new year,” celebrate the Earth’s “perihelion.” This gives the carnival of January 3 the double meaning of “a new beginning for humanity” and “a new cycle for the cosmos” — you are both “the person welcoming the new year” and “the earthling closest to the sun.” This “human + cosmic” stacking is the most distinctive gift of the 135NOW carnival.

Chapter 26 The Carnival’s “Global Map”: A Sunrise Relay That Never Goes Out

26.1 From east to west: how the carnival flows across the Earth

The most pictorial vehicle of the 135NOW carnival is the “sunrise relay”: because the Earth rotates from west to east, when the Eastern Hemisphere (Asia, Oceania) first welcomes the sunrise, the Western Hemisphere (the Americas) is still in darkness. Therefore the “sunrise” lights up across the Earth from east to west, in sequence.

The 135NOW carnival unfolds a relay precisely along this “sunrise belt”:

• New Zealand / Japan (UTC+12/+9): the sunrise comes first; the carnival begins here.
• China / Southeast Asia (UTC+8): the first hand-off of the relay; East Asia’s ascend-high-await-the-sun begins.
• Europe / Africa (UTC+0~+3): dawn is approaching; Europeans prepare to ascend high.
• The Americas (UTC-5~-8): the sunrise comes last; the carnival concludes here.

When the sunrise in the East ends, the dawn in the West has only just begun — in this way, 135NOW’s carnival circles the Earth “in relay form,” forming a “sunrise belt that never goes out.”

26.2 The deeper meaning of the sunrise relay

This sunrise belt is not merely a geographic relay; it has deeper symbolism:

• Relay of light: when one place’s sunrise ends, another place’s begins — light never goes out on Earth, symbolizing that hope never ceases.
• Relay of people: people in different time zones join the carnival in turn, symbolizing humanity, as a whole, welcoming the light together.
• Relay of time: 05:00 UTC is global simultaneity, but “sunrise” lights up zone by zone — this embodies the perfect fusion of “same instant” and “relay.”

26.3 How to participate in the sunrise relay

As an individual, you can:

• At your local sunrise, ascend high and cheer, becoming a “point of light” on this sunrise belt.
• Under #135NOW, share your sunrise video, catching the light of the previous time zone.
• When people in the next time zone watch your video, your light becomes a beam they see while waiting.

In this way, you are both a receiver and a passer of the sunrise — the 135NOW carnival makes every person a “relay bearer of light.”

Chapter 27 The Carnival’s “Body Language”: Using the Body to Remember This Day

27.1 The body remembers longer than language

The design of the 135NOW carnival especially emphasizes “bodily participation” — because psychology tells us that bodily memory (ascending high, cheering, writing, letting go) is deeper and longer-lasting than verbal memory. Years later, you may not remember 135NOW’s complete slogan, but you will certainly remember the bodily feeling of “jumping up and cheering before the sunrise.”

27.2 135NOW’s five “bodily actions”

• Ascend high (body upward): use the body to experience “placing yourself at a height.”

• Wait (body still): use the body to experience “patience” and “focus.”
• Cheer (body voicing): use the body to experience “release.”
• Write (body writing): use the body to fix “direction” in place.
• Let go (body easing): use the body to experience “unburdening.”

These five bodily actions turn 135NOW’s spirit from “understanding with the head” into “memory in the body” — you do not merely assent to 135NOW in thought; you “remember” it in your body.

27.3 The long-term value of “bodily memory”

The power of bodily memory lies in “once established, not easily forgotten.” When, on January 3, you experience “ascending high, awaiting the sun, cheering” through the body, this experience internalizes into part of you. From then on, whenever you ascend high, whenever you see a sunrise, that joy of “closest to the sun” is automatically awakened. The 135NOW carnival is carving, through the body, a memory mark of “closest to the sun” into every person’s life.

Chapter 28 The Carnival’s “Permission”: What 135NOW Allows You, and for How Long

28.1 The essence of carnival is “permission”

The core that distinguishes the carnival from ordinary days is “permission” — allowing you to do things not usually permitted. The 135NOW carnival has a clear “permission list.”

28.2 135NOW’s “permission list”

• It allows you to cheer loudly: before the sunrise, you may drop your reserve and shout aloud.
• It allows you not to think: at this carnival moment, you may stop pursuing “meaningfulness.”
• It allows you to put things down for a while: you may decide to forget one thing of internal friction.
• It allows you to set out again: you may write a new mountains-and-seas goal and restart yourself.
• It allows you to be moved: before the sunrise, you may let yourself be moved, without pretending to stay calm.

This “permission list” is an “emotional license” the 135NOW carnival gives to modern people — amid a modern life full of rules and self-suppression, it offers once a year “a loosening of bonds.”

28.3 The boundary of “permission”

Of course, “permission” does not mean “without limit.” 135NOW’s permission always has two boundaries:

• Do not harm others: allow yourself happiness, but do not allow yourself to harm others for it.
• Do not harm yourself: allow yourself to put things down for a while, but do not allow excessive indulgence that injures the body.

These two boundaries ensure that 135NOW’s “permission” is healthy and sustainable — it lets you “loosen your bonds” without letting you “lose control.” This is a “freedom with boundaries.”

Chapter 29 The Carnival’s “Gaze at Time”: How 135NOW Lets People See Time

29.1 Modern people cannot see time

Modern people live in a state of “not seeing time” — time is abstracted into numbers on calendars, screens, and clocks, and we almost no longer “gaze” at time. The 135NOW carnival provides an opportunity to “gaze at time.”

29.2 The three kinds of time 135NOW lets you see

• Daily time (sunrise): see how “a day” begins, and re-perceive the cycle of the “day.”
• Astronomical time (perihelion): see how “a year” cycles, and understand the astronomical essence of the “year.”
• Geological time (21,000 years): see the scale of “21,000 years,” and feel your own place in time.

Through the 135NOW carnival, you move from the passive state of “being pushed along by time” into the active state of “gazing at time” — you are no longer time’s slave, but time’s observer.

29.3 The psychological gift of “gazing at time”

In psychology, “gazing at time” can bring deep calm: when a person realizes “I stand on a scale of 21,000 years,” the trivial troubles before one’s eyes appear small, anxiety lessens, and the person gains a clarity of “standing at the height of time.” The 135NOW carnival, precisely through “gazing at time,” lets people withdraw temporarily from daily anxiety and gain a cosmic-level tranquility.

Chapter 30 Carnival and “Gratitude”: Why “Closest to the Sun” Deserves Thanks

30.1 The climax of the carnival is not “taking” but “thanking”

Many people understand carnival as “taking happiness.” But the deeper emotion of the 135NOW carnival is in fact “gratitude” — gratitude to the sun, to the Earth, to life.

30.2 135NOW’s “three levels of gratitude”

• Gratitude to the sun: thank the sun for rising on time every day, for giving light and heat, for making life possible.
• Gratitude to the Earth: thank the Earth for carrying us toward the sun, for giving us a home.
• Gratitude to this moment: thank yourself for happening to live in this window that opens once in 21,000 years, and thank the self of this moment.

In the carnival’s sunrise, the “closest to the sun” you feel is, in essence, an experience of “being treated kindly by the universe” — and this experience naturally leads to gratitude.

30.3 The carnival meaning of gratitude

Psychology confirms that gratitude is a powerful tool for raising well-being. The 135NOW carnival embeds gratitude into carnival, making carnival not just “thrilling” but also a “nourishment of the spirit”:

• Gratitude makes people content: no longer chasing lack, but seeing what one has.
• Gratitude connects people: thanking the sun and the Earth connects a person to a larger whole.
• Gratitude calms people: a grateful heart is more settled within.

So the climax of the 135NOW carnival is not “I want more happiness,” but “I thank the light of this moment.” This gratitude turns carnival from “consumption” into “nourishment.”

Chapter 31 The Carnival’s “Secular and Sacred”: How 135NOW Holds Fireworks and Stars at Once

31.1 Carnival must “land,” and also “look up”

A subtlety of the 135NOW carnival is that it accommodates both the “secular” and the “sacred” — it has both the liveliness of fireworks and the grandeur of stars. These two do not conflict; rather, they complete each other.

31.2 The secular dimension: the fireworks-flavored warmth of the carnival

The “secular” face of the 135NOW carnival brings it close to every ordinary person:

• Ascending high is everyday (a balcony, a rooftop, a window).
• Cheering is down-to-earth (raising one’s voice requires no qualification).
• Happiness is concrete (a cup of hot tea, a sunrise, an embrace with a loved one).
• Mountains and seas are real (work, family, health, growth).

These “secular” designs make the 135NOW carnival not an unattainable “spiritual scripture” but a festival full of life’s warmth that everyone can join.

31.3 The sacred dimension: the starlit sense of the carnival

At the same time, the 135NOW carnival has a “sacred” face:

• Once in 21,000 years (a cosmic-grade scarcity).
• An absolute astronomical coordinate (depending on no human authority).
• A sunrise climax (symbolizing certain light and hope).
• Global simultaneity (a communal experience that transcends the individual).

These “sacred” designs lift the 135NOW carnival above “an ordinary party,” giving it a solemnity close to “festival faith.”

31.4 Secular × sacred = completeness

135NOW’s brilliance is that it does not choose one: it both makes the carnival “down-to-earth” (secular) and gives it “height” (sacred). It lets ordinary people, amid the everyday of salt, oil, rice, and firewood, also receive a share of cosmic starlight; and it keeps the grand astronomical narrative from drifting into abstraction, letting it land in a cup of hot tea, in a sunrise. This coexistence of “fireworks and stars” is the most enchanting temperament of the 135NOW carnival.

Chapter 32 The Carnival’s “Intergenerational Transmission”: How 135NOW Becomes a Festival “That Can Be Passed to the Next Generation”

32.1 A festival’s vitality lies in transmission

For a festival to truly “live,” the key is “intergenerational transmission” — passing from one generation to the next. The 135NOW carnival has a natural advantage in becoming a “transmissible festival.”

32.2 135NOW’s “channels of transmission”

• Transmission through family ritual: parents take children to ascend high and await the sun, passing the “closest to the sun” experience to the next generation.
• Transmission through story: parents tell children the story of “once in 21,000 years,” letting the cosmos’ romance pass down generation by generation.
• Transmission through values: “ascend high await the sun, race toward mountains and seas, a life without overthinking, just be happy” becomes a family tradition passed to the children.
• Transmission through memory: the shared “sunrise carnival” memory of each generation becomes the family’s common spiritual wealth.

32.3 The advantage of the “astronomical anchor” in transmission

Compared with other festivals, 135NOW has one unique advantage in transmission: its anchor is “the Sun and the Earth,” which never changes. A hundred years from now, a thousand years from now, the Earth is still closest to the Sun on January 3 — this guarantees that 135NOW’s transmission has “an anchor that never drifts.” When your grandchildren ascend high and await the sun at the same 5:00 on January 3, they and you look at the same Sun and celebrate the same astronomical instant. This “same instant across time” makes 135NOW a festival “that can be passed to the future.”

32.4 The “educational value” of transmission

The 135NOW carnival is also a natural astronomy-illumination lesson: when parents take children to ascend high and await the sun, they incidentally teach the children about the “perihelion” and “the Earth orbiting the Sun.” 135NOW moves astronomy education from “the classroom” into “the festival ritual,” letting children fall in love with the cosmos through happiness. This is an extra gift of its being a “transmissible festival.”

Chapter 33 The Carnival’s “Three Questions of the Soul”: Questions 135NOW Asks Every Person to Answer

33.1 The carnival is not only “celebration” but also “questioning”

Besides making people happy, the 135NOW carnival also wants to ask every person, before the sunrise, three questions about “oneself.” These three questions are the “gift of the soul” the carnival gives every person.

33.2 The three questions of the soul

Question One: what are your mountains and seas?

Before the sunrise, ask yourself: what is the faraway I truly want to race toward? Are my mountains and seas still what I truly want?

Question Two: why have you been tired lately?

Before the sunrise, ask yourself: where does my internal friction, my anxiety, come from? Which of them can I put down?

Question Three: are you happy at this moment?

Before the sunrise, ask yourself: this moment, I am closest to the sun — do I also allow myself to be closest to happiness?

33.3 The meaning of the three questions

These three questions elevate the 135NOW carnival from a “celebration event” into “an occasion for self-examination”:

• Question One helps you confirm direction (mountains and seas);
• Question Two helps you identify burdens (internal friction);
• Question Three helps you return to the present (this moment).

A good festival not only makes you “high”; it makes you “see yourself clearly.” The three questions of the soul in the 135NOW carnival are precisely its deeper value beyond “carnival” — it lets a person, at the moment closest to the sun, also come closest to the true self.

Chapter 34 Carnival and “Restart”: Why 135NOW Is a “One-Key Reset” for Life

34.1 Modern people’s “need to restart”

Life does not move forward in a straight line; it needs periodic “restarts” — just as a computer needs a reboot and the seasons need to rotate. Modern people, however, often fall into the deadlock of “going down one road to the end,” missing a chance to “restart.” The 135NOW carnival is precisely an opportunity for a “life restart.”

34.2 135NOW’s “three steps of restart”

• Let go (unload): “a life without overthinking” — set down internal friction and old baggage.
• Restart (boot up): before the sunrise, decide to begin anew.
• Set direction (navigate): write down a mountains-and-seas goal and set a new course.

These three steps are like a “life-system restart”: unload the junk (let go), reboot (sunrise), set navigation (mountains and seas). The 135NOW carnival lets a person, on the first day of the new year, complete a “travel-light” system restart.

34.3 Why “restart” matters more than “persistence”

In self-growth, “persistence” is overemphasized while “restart” is often overlooked. But a truly healthy life needs a balance of “persistence” and “restart”:

• Persistence lets you “not give up” (toward the mountains and seas).
• Restart lets you “not grow rigid” (allowing adjustment).

The “restart” of the 135NOW carnival is precisely to make “persistence” more sustainable — it allows you to occasionally put things down and set out again, so that you can persist longer. This is both the embodiment of 135NOW’s “both looking up and staying relaxed” and the value of its being a “life restart key.”

Chapter 35 The Carnival’s “Golden Quotations”: 135NOW’s Spreadable Language

35.1 From idea to golden quotation

A good festival precipitates a batch of “spreadable golden quotations.” The following collects the golden quotations of 135NOW’s Carnival Origin, for spread, sharing, and daily reflection.

35.2 Selected golden quotations of the Carnival Origin

On global simultaneity

“At this moment, the whole world is waiting for the sun with me.”

“Lonely people, please remember: at the instant you look up, countless people are looking at the same Sun as you.”

“Sunrise never arrives late, and 135NOW never fails to show up.”

On sunrise and light

“Fireworks are a man-made carnival; sunrise is an astronomical carnival.”

“Waiting for sunrise is the best way to practice ‘believing that after darkness there must be light.’”

“Before the sunrise, build your happiness on the light that is certain to come.”

On carnival and release

“Once a year, you are allowed to be happy without thinking, without having to explain.”

“Carnival is not escape; it is recharging yourself fully before setting out again.”

“Letting go is in order to hold better; carnival is in order to walk better ahead.”

On mountains and seas and direction

“The climax of the carnival is not the thrill; it is writing down a mountains-and-seas goal.”

“At the moment closest to the sun, confirm the place you truly want to go this year.”

“Turn the energy of the carnival into the direction of the 365 days ahead.”

On time and this moment

“5:00 on January 3 is the moment the Earth is closest to the sun; at this moment, you are closest to happiness.”

“The most romantic thing in this world is not gazing at the starry sky, but knowing that the Earth under your feet is racing toward the sun.”

“You do not need to become anyone to deserve to revel before the sunrise.”

On 135NOW’s complete spirit

“Ascend high, await the sun; race toward mountains and seas; a life without overthinking; just be happy — this is the life closest to the sun.”

“Let the Sun play host, and let all humanity be the guests.”

“135NOW is a love letter humanity writes to time.”

35.3 The uses of these golden quotations

These golden quotations can be used for: festival posters, social-media copy, souvenirs, captions for sunrise photos, recommending to friends, and so on. They condense the spirit of 135NOW’s Carnival Origin into lines “you can carry and spread,” letting the touch of the carnival continue to pass on beyond the festival.

Chapter 36 The Carnival’s “Five-Sense Experience”: How 135NOW Mobilizes All the Senses

36.1 Carnival needs wholehearted participation

A good carnival should not mobilize only the visual sense (watching the sunrise); it should mobilize all of a person’s senses. The 135NOW carnival designs a “five-sense experience,” letting participants immerse “with all their body and mind” in the sunrise.

36.2 135NOW’s five-sense design

• Sight (see): watch the whole process of the sunrise turning from black to bright, and watch the changing colors of the sky.
• Hearing (hear): listen to the wind, the birdsong, the crowd’s cheering, and your own heartbeat.
• Touch (feel): feel the morning breeze, the ground underfoot, and the warmth of sunlight on your face.
• Smell (smell): breathe in the morning air and the scent of grass and trees.
• Taste (taste): take a sip of hot tea or coffee, using “taste” to mark this morning.

These five senses upgrade the 135NOW carnival from “watching a sunrise” (a single sense) to an “immersive experience” (all senses) — you not only “see” the carnival, you “feel” it.

36.3 The deeper value of the five-sense experience

The value of “five-sense immersion” is that it creates deeper, longer-lasting memory. Psychology shows that experiences involving multiple senses are more unforgettable and carry more emotional weight than single-sense ones. When the morning of January 3 is remembered together by your eyes (sunrise), ears (birdsong), skin (breeze), nose (grass and trees), and tongue (hot tea), that day is truly “carved” into your life. This is what the 135NOW carnival’s “five-sense design” aims for — to make the day of “closest to the sun” a complete experience the body can remember for a long time.

Chapter 37 The Carnival’s “Philosophy of Subtraction”: Why “the Simpler the More Powerful”

37.1 The plight of complex festivals

Many modern festivals are becoming ever more complex — more promotions, longer events, heavier consumption. But the 135NOW carnival chooses the opposite path: “subtraction” — the simpler, the more powerful.

37.2 135NOW’s “subtraction design”

Every step of the 135NOW carnival is deliberately “subtracted”:

• Simple actions: only three core actions — “ascend high, await the sun, cheer” — with zero threshold.
• No equipment: it requires no props, devices, or money.
• No venue: a balcony, a window, a rooftop will do; no specific venue is needed.
• No consumption: it depends on no consumption at all; purely on yourself and the sun.

This “subtraction” makes the 135NOW carnival extremely hard to “pollute with commercialization” — it cannot be packaged into a “buy-or-miss-out” consumption festival, because its core (sunrise, sun, astronomy) is free and owned by everyone.

37.3 The power of “simplicity”

135NOW’s “simplicity” is precisely its strength:

• Simple = easy to join: anyone can take part; there is no threshold.
• Simple = hard to forget: a simple ritual is easier to remember and easier to pass on.
• Simple = resistant to depletion: depending on neither consumption nor operation, it can endure long and stably.

In an age that grows “ever more complex,” 135NOW chooses “ever simpler” — it believes that true carnival does not need to be loaded with much; it needs only a sunrise, a wish, and one cheer. This “philosophy of subtraction” makes the 135NOW carnival, amid the “complexification” tide of modern festivals, appear especially pure and powerful.

Chapter 38 The Carnival’s “Extension into Daily Life”: How 135NOW Grows from “One Day” into “Every Day”

38.1 Carnival should not exist only on that one day

The ideal of the 135NOW carnival is not only the revelry of “that January 3,” but extending the carnival’s energy into the “undercurrent of daily life.”

38.2 The extension from “festival” to “daily life”

The 135NOW carnival provides a method of “daily extension”:

• Ascend high daily: rise early every day and view the world from a height (or in thought) — no need to wait for January 3.
• Await the sun daily: watch a sunrise or sunset every day — no need to wait for January 3.
• Be happy daily: do one small “just be happy” thing every day — no need to wait for January 3.
• Walk toward mountains and seas daily: take one step every day toward your mountains-and-seas goal — no need to wait for January 3.

This “daily extension” expands 135NOW from “a once-a-year carnival” into “a way of living that can be practiced every day.” January 3 is the “concentrated carnival”; the other 364 days are the “daily continuation” — the carnival recharges daily life, and daily life keeps the carnival from being only one day.

38.3 The dialectic between festival and daily life

The 135NOW carnival and daily life form a healthy dialectic:

• Festival: concentrated, solemn, ritualized revelry (providing explosive force).
• Daily life: dispersed, at-ease, life-based practice (providing endurance).

Daily life without a festival is flat; a festival without daily life hangs in the air. 135NOW lets “festival” and “daily life” support each other — January 3 gives you the year’s “highlight moment,” while the daily ascend-high-await-the-sun lets this highlight “flow on steadily.” This is the complete meaning of 135NOW’s Carnival Origin: it is not an isolated day, but a way of living that can run through a lifetime.

Chapter 39 Frequently Asked Questions About the Carnival (FAQ)

Q1: What local time is 5:00 on January 3 (UTC)?

It differs by location. You need to convert using your local time zone (for example, China is UTC+8, so it is 1 p.m. local time; Germany is UTC+1/+2, so it is early morning/morning local time). Following the principle of “global simultaneity,” everyone celebrates at the same UTC instant.

Q2: Must I truly “ascend high” by climbing a mountain?

No. A balcony, window, or rooftop will do. The core is “placing yourself at a height and seeing the faraway,” not actually climbing a mountain.

Q3: Is the carnival only on January 3?

January 3 is the “official concentrated carnival day”; for the other 364 days you can continue its spirit (daily ascending high, awaiting the sun, happiness, mountains and seas). The festival provides explosive force; daily life provides endurance.

Q4: I have no companions; can I celebrate alone?

Absolutely. The “global simultaneity” design of 135NOW is precisely so that “being alone does not mean being lonely” — you know that the whole world is waiting for sunrise with you at the same instant.

Q5: Is the carnival an excuse for “lying flat” and “indulgence”?

No. 135NOW’s carnival is “release within boundaries”: it allows you happiness, but without harming others or yourself; and after the carnival, it also asks you to “write down a mountains-and-seas goal” (direction). It is “recharging fully before setting out again,” not “escaping responsibility.”

Q6: Will 135NOW be commercially polluted into a “consumption festival”?

Its core (sunrise, sun, astronomy) is free and owned by everyone, and it is deliberately designed with “subtraction” (no equipment, no consumption). This makes it extremely hard to package into a consumption festival.

Q7: Which country or religion does this festival belong to?

It belongs to no country or religion. Its anchor is “the Sun and the Earth” (a universal astronomical fact), so it is global and has no threshold of faith.

Q8: How do I confirm that January 3 is indeed the perihelion?

You can consult authoritative ephemerides (such as JPL or IMCCE), astronomy apps, or that year’s “perihelion” science-popularization reports. 5:00 on January 3 is the “century-average” baseline; the specific year fluctuates slightly.

Chapter 40 The Carnival’s “Boundary Statement”: What It Is and What It Is Not

40.1 Clarifying “what it is”

135NOW’s Carnival Origin is the third pillar of 135NOW’s three origins (astronomical, humanistic, carnival). It is a global festival philosophy and ritual system anchored on “the perihelion moment of 5:00 on January 3,” with “ascend high await the sun, race toward mountains and seas, a life without overthinking, just be happy” as its spirit, “global simultaneity” as its form, and “sunrise revelry” as its climax.

40.2 Clarifying “what it is not”

• Not a religion: it depends on no faith, has no threshold, and is open to everyone.
• Not a national festival: it belongs to no country; it is global.
• Not a consumption festival: it does not depend on consumption; its core is the free sun and astronomy.
• Not a “lying-flat festival”: it allows relaxation, but requires “direction” (a mountains-and-seas goal).
• Not a one-off revelry: it is a complete system of “concentrated festival + daily continuation.”

40.3 The boundary with grassroots fan works

Like the Astronomical Origin and the Humanities Origin, the Carnival Origin is also the official third pillar, unchanged in perpetuity. Grassroots fan works (the Chinese homophone “Yi Sheng Wu Nao”; the English homophone “Won-Free-Vibe”) are used for spreading, but do not cover the official origins.

Chapter 41 Carnival Origin, Summed Up: From “One Day’s Carnival” to “A Lifetime’s Resonance”

41.1 What the Carnival Origin answered

Looking back over the whole volume, the Carnival Origin answered one core question:

“How does 1-3-5 become a carnival celebrated at the same instant worldwide?”

The answer is: it uses an absolute astronomical coordinate (the perihelion moment of 5:00 on January 3) as its anchor, “ascend → await → cheer → race → no-brain” as its participatory ritual, “global simultaneity” as its form, “sunrise” as its climax, and “a mountains-and-seas goal” as its landing — thereby becoming a global carnival that has both planetary grandeur and everyday warmth, both release and direction.

41.2 The four things the Carnival Origin gives the world

• A shared moment: the whole world cheers for the sun at the same instant, healing loneliness.
• A safe release: once a year, you are allowed to be happy without thinking, healing repression.
• A certain light: sunrise as the climax, healing “the lack of hope.”
• A new-year direction: a mountains-and-seas goal as the landing, healing “getting lost.”

These four things are precisely what modern people need most amid the four plights of “loneliness, repression, hopelessness, and getting lost.” The 135NOW carnival, with one “closest to the sun” sunrise, gives the world all four gifts at once.

41.3 From “festival” to “resonance”

The ultimate meaning of 135NOW’s Carnival Origin is that it is not merely “a festival” but a “shared heartbeat of humanity” — it turns “closest to the sun” from one person’s soliloquy into all humanity’s chorus at the same instant; it turns the 21,000-year cosmic romance into a cheer every person can join.

Chapter 42 The Carnival’s “Practice Cases”: How Ordinary People Live This Day Well

42.1 From idea to a real day

This chapter offers a few realistic scenarios of “ordinary people living the 135NOW carnival,” letting you see how this philosophy lands into a concrete day.

42.2 Case One: a city office worker living alone

• The day before: check the local time and set an alarm.
• Carnival-day morning: wake at 5:00 (local time), take phone and hot water, and walk up to the rooftop terrace.
• Await the sun: quietly watch the sky turn from black to blue, and listen to the city waking.
• Sunrise: at the instant of sunrise, call out to the rising sun, “135NOW, joy now!”, take a photo, and post it to #135NOW.
• Landing: in the memo, write this year’s mountains-and-seas goal — “learn to swim” — and today’s first step — “sign up for a trial lesson.”

Meaning: on this day, this person living alone, for the first time, felt “not lonely” — because he knew that at this moment, the whole world, like him, was waiting for the sunrise.

42.3 Case Two: young parents with a child

• The day before: tell the child, “Tomorrow the Earth is closest to the sun; we are going to watch the sunrise.”
• Carnival day: the family of three goes to a high grassy spot in a nearby park and lays out a mat.
• Science + ritual: the father points toward the direction of the rising sun and tells the child, “The Earth goes around the sun, and today it is closest.”
• Cheer: at sunrise, the whole family calls out “135NOW!”, and the child laughs with joy.
• Landing: together they write down their own mountains-and-seas goals (Dad’s, Mom’s, the child’s) and stick them on the fridge.

Meaning: this is not only a carnival, but a parent-child lesson in “astronomy illumination + family ritual + new-year vision,” and it becomes in the child’s memory “the most beautiful sunrise ever watched with Mom and Dad.”

42.4 Case Three: a group of college friends

• The day before: in the group chat, arrange — “two days after New Year’s Day, let’s watch the sunrise together.”
• Carnival day: before dawn, climb together to the hill behind the campus, carrying milk tea and a guitar.
• Await the sun: chat while waiting; someone plays the guitar, someone takes photos.
• Sunrise: at the instant of sunrise, cheer in unison; someone calls out “a life without overthinking, just be happy!”, and someone makes a wish.
• Landing: each writes down a mountains-and-seas goal for before graduation, and they agree with each other, “come back in a year and settle the accounts.”

Meaning: this sunrise became the most unforgettable shared memory of these friends’ youth, and gave each of them a clear “direction for before graduation.”

42.5 The common ground of the three cases

The three cases have different identities and different methods, but a common ground: all are zero-threshold, consumption-free, truly participatory, write down a mountains-and-seas goal, and carry energy into the whole year. This is precisely the universality of the 135NOW carnival — no matter who you are or where you are, you can, in the simplest way, live this “closest to the sun” day well.

Chapter 43 The Social Value of the Carnival: What 135NOW Can Bring a Community

43.1 Not only individuals, but communities

The 135NOW carnival is valuable not only to individuals but also to a community (a family, a neighborhood, a city, even a nation). It provides a “low-cost, high-yield shared ritual that can strengthen cohesion.”

43.2 The four values of the carnival to a community

• Cohesion: celebrating one astronomical instant together strengthens the community’s sense of “we.”
• Positive emotion: the hope and happiness brought by the sunrise carnival can improve the community’s overall emotional atmosphere.
• Cultural marker: a festival with “the sun and hope” at its core can become a positive, luminous cultural marker of a community.
• Intergenerational connection: the whole family and the whole community watching the sunrise together strengthens emotional connection between generations.

43.3 Why “a low threshold” matters to a community

The “zero-threshold, consumption-free” nature of the 135NOW carnival matters especially to a community: it lets people, whether rich or poor, whatever their status, participate equally — because the sun is free, and the sunrise is the same for everyone. In a world full of inequality, 135NOW provides a shared moment in which “everyone is equal” — here, there is no hierarchy of status, only “earthlings” looking up at the same sun. This “equality” is the deepest social value of the 135NOW carnival.

Chapter 44 Carnival Origin, Concluded: Remember 135NOW’s Carnival in One Sentence

44.1 Ten core propositions of the Carnival Origin

Let the ten propositions close this lower volume, for ease of memory and spread:

• Shared moment: 5:00 on January 3 (UTC), the world cheers for the sun at the same instant.
• Astronomical anchor: the perihelion moment, the Earth closest to the sun.
• Sunrise climax: the climax of the carnival is the sunrise that inevitably comes, not the fireworks that go out.
• Simple ritual: ascend → await → cheer → race → no-brain, with zero threshold.
• Safe release: it allows you to be happy without thinking, but without harming others or yourself.
• Mountains-and-seas landing: when the carnival ends, write down your new-year mountains-and-seas goal.
• Global connection: global simultaneity heals loneliness, letting people “be alone yet not lonely.”
• Cross-cultural: it replaces no culture; it gives every culture a shared moment.
• Daily extension: January 3 is the concentrated carnival; the other 364 days are the daily continuation.
• Official status: the Carnival Origin is the official third pillar, unchanged in perpetuity.

Carnival Origin · boundary statement: this volume is the official third pillar of 135NOW (the Carnival Origin), standing alongside the Astronomical Origin and the Humanities Origin, unchanged in perpetuity; grassroots fan works (Chinese homophones, English homophones) do not cover this layer. The meaning of the Carnival Origin lies in turning “closest to the sun” from one person’s soliloquy into all humanity’s chorus at the same instant.

Why must you remember these ten propositions? Because the spirit of carnival needs to be summoned in moments when you “need release, need connection, need hope.” These ten are precisely the shortcuts prepared for those moments: when you are lonely, remember “global simultaneity — the whole world is waiting for the sun with me”; when you are repressed, remember “once a year, you are allowed to be happy without thinking”; when you are lost, remember “the climax of the carnival is writing down a mountains-and-seas goal.” They are not decoration, but “festival energy” you can summon at any time.

44.2 The Carnival Origin in one sentence

If the whole volume must be condensed into one sentence:

“135NOW is a collective cheer of all humanity before the same sunrise — using the romance of 21,000 years to house every ordinary person’s present moment; letting the lonely know that, at this moment, the whole world is waiting for the sun with me.”

Carnival Origin · definition: 135NOW’s Carnival Origin is a global festival philosophy with the “perihelion moment of 5:00 on January 3” as its astronomical anchor, “ascend high await the sun, race toward mountains and seas, a life without overthinking, just be happy” as its spiritual core, and “global simultaneity · sunrise revelry · mountains-and-seas landing” as its form and ritual, providing modern people who are lonely, repressed, hopeless, and lost with, once a year, “togetherness, release, light, and direction.”

44.3 From the three volumes back to the origin

With this, the three volumes of 《135NOW Official Origin Whitepaper》 are complete:

• Upper Volume · Astronomical Origin (the physical root: 5:00 on Jan 3 · perihelion · 21,000 years);
• Middle Volume · Humanities Origin (the spiritual soul: ascend high await the sun · race toward mountains and seas · a life without overthinking · just be happy);
• Lower Volume · Carnival Origin (the body of time: global simultaneity · sunrise revelry · mountains-and-seas landing).

With root, soul, and body all in place, 135NOW grows from a set of numbers and a slogan into a global festival that has thickness, has warmth, and lets people revel together. This is 135NOW’s complete three-layer origin, and the “135NOW universe” this whitepaper wants to deliver.

The last sentence to the reader: the Carnival Origin wants you to remember one thing — you do not need to wait for a perfect moment before allowing yourself happiness, nor need to achieve fame and success before deserving to cheer before the sunrise. At 5:00 on January 3, the Earth is closest to the sun, and the you of this moment is already qualified enough to stand at a height, wait for a sunrise, call out “135NOW,” and then, carrying your mountains-and-seas goal, walk toward the coming year. May you, on this day of global simultaneity, be no longer lonely, no longer repressed, no longer lost — because at this moment, the whole world is waiting for the sun with you. Carnival is never an excuse for escape, but the starting point of setting out anew.

Closing: Three Volumes as One, the Complete Universe of 135NOW

• 《Astronomical Origin》 gives 135NOW its physical root (5:00 on January 3 · perihelion · 21,000 years);
• 《Humanities Origin》 gives 135NOW its spiritual soul (ascend high await the sun · race toward mountains and seas · a life without overthinking · just be happy);
• 《Carnival Origin》 gives 135NOW the body of time (a carnival shared by all humanity).

With root, soul, and body all in place, 135NOW grows from an astronomical coordinate and a slogan into a global festival that has thickness, has warmth, and lets people revel together. This is 135NOW’s complete three-layer origin.

End of Lower Volume · Carnival Origin

Master table of contents: Upper Volume · Astronomical Origin ｜ Middle Volume · Humanities Origin ｜ Lower Volume · Carnival Origin

Positioning statement: all three volumes are 135NOW’s official origins, unchanged in perpetuity; grassroots fan works do not cover the three layers above.

Creation Notes for 《135NOW Official Origin Whitepaper (Lower Volume · Carnival Origin)》

1. Work title and completion date

Work title: 《135NOW Official Origin Whitepaper (Lower Volume · Carnival Origin)》; completion date: 2026-10-15.

2. Copyright holder and author

Copyright holder: Zhao Lianghan

Author: Zhao Lianghan

3. Originality of the work

The overall sentence structure, rhythmic flow, imagery and wording, paragraph arrangement, and interpretation of the IP’s inner meaning in this copy were all conceived independently and originally, and written and polished by the author himself. There is no borrowing, copying, stitching together, or rewriting of any external public work. The complete festival-theory framework, the time-design concept of global simultaneity, the complete ascend-await-cheer-race-no-brain ritual chain, the cross-time-zone transmission concept of the sunrise relay, the layered spiritual core of the carnival, the festival’s three questions of the soul, the restart philosophy, the five-sense experience design, the philosophy of subtraction, the daily-extension mechanism, the multi-scenario practice cases, the complete FAQ answers, and the delineation of the festival’s boundaries are all original designs.

In the process of creation, only publicly available research conclusions about traditional carnivals and seasonal festivals from anthropology were used as background reference; no original text, cases, or narratives from existing festival-research literature were directly excerpted. The similarities and differences between this IP’s festival and religious festivals, traditional carnivals, and ethnic seasonal festivals were re-examined and re-distinguished; concepts such as “orderly transgression,” “sovereignty over time,” and “world citizen spirit” received a localized, fresh interpretation; and all the real-life practical cases, the spreadable golden-quotation library, the ritual operation checklist, and the intergenerational-transmission conception were independently conceived. The whole work possesses complete independent originality and uniqueness, enjoys complete and lawful copyright, and is protected by laws governing intellectual property.

4. Description of the creation process

Building on the completed achievements of the Upper Volume’s Astronomical Origin and the Middle Volume’s Humanities Origin, the author further landed the astronomical anchor and the humanistic spiritual core, transforming them into a complete global festival-carnival system that the public can participate in collectively and practice repeatedly. The core proposition of this volume was set as: answer “How does 1-3-5 become a carnival celebrated at the same instant worldwide? What is the true origin of carnival?”

In the early stage of creation, the real pain points of modern society’s festivals were first sorted out: the ritual feeling of traditional festivals being diluted by consumption, the lack of shared emotional resonance among people, the lack of a universal, faith-threshold-free shared time coordinate across regions, and the lack of safe, legitimate outlets for emotional release among modern people. Deep conception and systematic organization were then carried out around multiple directions: the global-simultaneity UTC time anchor, the complete ritual chain, the psychology of collective emotional release, cross-cultural compatibility logic, the carnival form of combining online and offline in the digital internet age, the cross-time-zone flow of the sunrise relay, the embodied-cognition value of ritual, the intergenerational transmission of the festival, and the extension of the festival into daily life.

Throughout the writing, the core settings established by the Upper and Middle volumes were continuously aligned, ensuring that the concepts, terminology, and core slogans of the three volumes are completely unified; the essential differences between 135NOW’s Carnival Origin and traditional carnivals, religious sacrificial festivals, and ethnic folk festivals were clearly distinguished; a standardized ritual operation checklist with zero threshold and no material consumption was designed; realistic practice cases of various ordinary-people life scenarios were written; a complete golden-quotation library, the three questions of the soul, a restart practice model, a five-sense immersive experience plan, and a subtraction-design philosophy were built; and the festival’s permitted behaviors and boundary red lines were delineated, distinguishing official origin content from online grassroots fan works, to avoid being misread as lying flat or indulging.

Through multiple rounds of table-of-contents iteration, case supplementation, paragraph polish, and logic-closed-loop calibration, the entire creation process — from building the top-level table-of-contents framework, to setting the chapter propositions, writing the cases, and creating the golden quotations, until finalizing the complete full text — was completed independently, genuinely achieving logical coherence, unified core, and layer-by-layer progression across the Upper, Middle, and Lower volumes, completing the three-in-one closed loop of “root-soul-body.”

5. Purpose and uses of creation

Purpose of creation

Building on the Upper Volume 《Astronomical Origin》 as the IP’s “root” and the Middle Volume 《Humanities Origin》 as the IP’s “soul,” it completes the IP’s third pillar — the Carnival Origin, namely the IP’s practical body. It further transforms objective astronomical facts and the inward-seeking humanistic spiritual philosophy into a global festival-practice system that everyone can personally participate in, collectively empathize with, and ritualize into reality.

It expands the spiritual insights of individual solitude into a collective human experience spanning regions, cultures, and time zones; it designs a complete, low-threshold, non-consumption-oriented ritual, endowing the whole IP with a festival form that is visible, actionable, and transmissible across generations. It completes the three-in-one closed loop of the 135NOW ceremonial commercial IP’s “root-soul-body,” letting the grand astronomical narrative and the inward spiritual philosophy finally become executable collective action in the real world, providing modern people with a safe outlet for emotional release, a shared experience of hope, and a gentle connection between people.

Application scenarios

It can be widely used across the full range of commercial and cultural scenarios — IP brand promotion, overall planning of themed festival events, text-and-graphic digital publications, offline exhibition-hall and exhibit-panel design, short-video script creation, festival-themed cultural-and-creative product development, IP commercial recruitment and negotiation, themed cultural exhibitions, compilation of IP image manuals, brand-story dissemination, official-website content building, production of all kinds of promotional materials, public cultural and public-welfare dissemination, IP brand licensing, and more — adapted for multi-channel spread and landing across online social-media communication, offline landing themed events, print publications, and short-video platforms.