Admonishment to you 21's and younger: The glory and celebration surrounding your birthday sharply fades at the 22nd birthday. No one tells you that this is going to happen....it just does.
Philosophically, birthdays are funny to me. Like Christmas. A birthday really is nothing more than the annual acknowledgment of the day that you were thrown into this world and that you happen to still be in this world. We have made much more cultural add-ons to the event, seemingly to make it also a celebration of wanting to make that person feel good, to affirm to them the reasons that we like them, or to make them puke and drool on themselves for our own amusement. Like, Christmas.... well, in my family at least :). The convention of Christmas has its pagan roots and arbitrary date, and weird, disconnected conventions that seem to do nothing with-- if you would ask a Christian-- its organic intention.
All in all, it is just peculiar how grown up traditions start to replace our intent...generation after generation, and that we allow this in-authentic practice for ourselves even with half and full awareness of it.
"Every tradition now grows more venerable the farther away its origin lies and the more this origin is forgotten; the respect paid to it increases from generation to generation, the tradition at last becomes holy and evokes awe and reverence; and thus the morality of piety is in any event a much older morality than that which demands unegoistic acts."
Nietzsche, "Human, All Too Human"
A very insightful perspective on tradition. As much as a value the concept of tradition, Nietzsche is right in that the only it becomes, the further it distances from its origin. This begs the question: Should traditions remain constant and unchanging, or should they be altered to fit the advancement of time? Furthermore, if they are altered, are they still traditions, or merely novel practices?
ReplyDeleteI disagree with Nietzshe, in my life as I grow older the respect I pay to particular events seem to diminish. I am 21 now and I know with the exception of my fraternity and puking on my self, my birthday was less celebrated than the extravagant parade that was my 2nd Birthday. One could say other wise, but to me as time passes certain traditions lose their frequency of praise. Yes the meaning is still present most of the times, however celebration and relevance decreases as time goes on.
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