Why do we celebrate birthdays? What is it that we are proud of? Is it the fact that we have survived another year against many odds? Are we marking the progress we have made, our overall achievements? Is it a sign of new hope sprung eternal to live another year?
None would matter maybe..
If we are commemorating the year that passed, would we still drink to it if we were to receive some bad news about our health and imminent demise? Not likely, but why? What is the relevance of information about the future (our own upcoming death) when it is the past that we are celebrating? The past is immutable. Never a future event can corrupt the fact that we got it through another 12 months of struggle. Then why not celebrate this fact?
Because what we think is not the past. It is about our future, not about the past. We are celebrating having gone so far because such outlook in life allows us to live forward. We’re proud of our potentials to enjoy life. Birthdays are reflections of exuberant, blind faith in our own suspended mortality.
But if this holds true, definitely we have less and less to celebrate as we grow older. What reason do octogenarians have to drink to one more year if that gift is not easily guaranteed? Life provides diminishing returns: the longer you invest, the less you take the marginal dividends of the fruits of your labor, like life insurance. Indeed, based on actuary tables, it becomes increasingly less rational to celeberate as we grow older.
Therefore, we are forced into the conclusion self-delusionally defying death are what birthday meant. Birthdays are about preserving the illusion of immortality. Birthdays are forms of acting out our creative thinking. By celebrating our existence, we give ourselves protective charms against the nonsense and arbitrariness of a cold, impersonal, and and most often a world full of hostility.
And it works more often than not. Have a no prescription – Happy birthday!
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