Why do we observe celebrating our birthdays? What is it that we are toasting? Is it for we survive another year of hardships and odds? Are we taking notes of our progress, our victories and triumphs? Is it a sign of new hope for us to live our life for the year to come?
None would matter maybe..
If we are remembering the past year, would we still drink to it if we were to receive some bad news about our health and imminent demise? Not likely, but why? How is the future relevant (our own looming death) when one is celebrating the past? We cannot change the past. Never a future event can vitiate the fact that we got it through another 12 months of struggle. Then why not celebrate this fact?
Because what we focus on is not the past. Our birthdays are about the future, not of the past. We are celebrating having arrived so far because such successful resilience allows us to continue forward. We’re proud of our potentials to further enjoy the gifts of life. Birthdays are constructions of unrestrained, blind faith in our own suspended mortality.
But if this holds true, surely as we grow older we have less and less cause to celebrate. What reason do octogenarians have to drink to another year if that gift is far from guaranteed? Life provides diminishing returns: the longer you are invested, the less likely you are to reap the dividenda of survival, life insurance for example. So, based on actuarial science, it becomes increasingly less rational to celeberate as we grow older.
Thus, we are driven into the conclusion that birthdays are about self-delusionally defying death. Preserving the illusion of immortality are what birthdays mean. Birthdays are forms of acting out our magical thinking. By celebrating our existence, we bestow on ourselves protective charms against the nonsense and whimsical nature of a impersonal, cruel, cold, 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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