Don't Even Tell Me Happy Birthday!

[TheFifthApe]

Objectively, is celebrating one’s birthday normal? Mine is coming up any day now, but I have long decided that it is just a day like any other: I am going to wake up more or less around the same time, eat my Paleo meals, lift weights, head out to work and sleep after sunset.

 

I have been trying to psychoanalyze my approach to things. Perhaps it is because I have few friends? Perhaps it is because I’m preoccupied with business planning? But still my friends will come out to play if I asked them and we can have dinner or something… but what for? I rather celebrate an achievement, an honorable deed, or an act of pure bravery. If I am celebrating my life then I can celebrate it right now, I get older everyday.

 

Why wait once a year to get drunk? And what’s so great about getting old anyways?

[J. D. Stembal]

My mother sent me a text on my birthday reminding me how much she loves me. Yeah, right. She was back at work within eight weeks of my birth.

 

I would also rather celebrate an event worth celebrating, not just an arbitrary day when I squeezed through a sex organ. Why this day and why only once a year?

[Omegahero09]

If I am celebrating my life then I can celebrate it right now, I get older everyday.

 

Birthdays are for others to celebrate you, and it makes sense as a sort of holiday because not everyone may be able to make it out to you all the time.

 

On my girlfriend's side, holidays and birthdays are a big deal because her family and friends are spread out all over the states, all with their own families and kids- so irl time with each other is precious.

 

In the cult of the family, birthdays are a great facade. But amongst friends, it's entirely different.

[Kevin Beal]

The reason you would celebrate your life on your birthday as opposed to any other day is because it is the day that you were born. The day you came into the world. If you accept that celebrating your life is a good thing, it's hard to imagine a better event for that celebration to be tied to.

 

And I think it is important to celebrate your own life, to honor who you are and are becoming. You've made it this far, and that's worth celebrating.

 

Stef also said that he doesn't think birthdays are a big deal, and all of you are crazy. Yes, birthdays are a big deal!

[kavih]

The reason you would celebrate your life on your birthday as opposed to any other day is because it is the day that you were born.

This made me think about any celebration, not just an individual's birthday. What justifies something being so important that an annual celebration for it is desired? Like annually celebrating the day two people are married.

[Better Future]

The celebration of anything seems ritualistic and weird to me. Christmas, Birthdays, Easter, New Year. I see every day as a gift personally.

 

"Today is a very special day, the rest are just boring normal days..."

[Kevin Beal]

I'm totally fine with people celebrating their life any / every day of the year, I just think that there is a reason it would be one of those particular days, and that reason is not trivial.

 

Same goes for marriages or anything else. Celebrate it whenever you want, but it's not this completely arbitrary decision to celebrate a marriage on the same day of the year as the wedding.

 

It is ritualistic, and rituals can be totally awesome! Have you had yourself a good ritual lately?

[Pepin]

I see it as a special day that everyone has, and everyone conspires to celebrate your birthday because they will celebrate your's.

 

To put it this way, if declared your own holiday devoted to you, that would be pretty cool, though nobody would probably celebrate it. But if you declared that other people ought to have their own special holiday as well, and they were all to be on a different date, then these people would have an incentive to celebrate your made up holiday so you and others would celebrate their own made up holiday.

 

I think birthdays are somewhat analogous to the above, with a lot of ritual sprinkled in.

 

I really didn't care too much about birthdays before, but the last two years my coworkers have induced pretty good feelings in me on my birthday.

[surfingthoughts]

With this topic you could even get into the argument about the idea of time I mean there is logic in the Callander but it's a man made concept.

 

I mean you shouldn't need an excuse to meet up with loved ones and have a great time but birthdays seems to be a way of achieving this.

[Better Future]

Can't wait till my birthday, it's gonna be so great...

[Ray H.]

Birthdays, anniversaries, and the like are excuses to party with people that you enjoy being around. Party hard.

[aliasneo]

Do you have anyone to spend your date of birth with? If not, how have your birthdays been in the past?

 

You can probably guess how mine have been by the questions above...

[TheFifthApe]

My mother sent me a text on my birthday reminding me how much she loves me. Yeah, right. She was back at work within eight weeks of my birth.

 

Sorry to hear that. In general, I find texts to be lacking in emotional value especially when people become reliant upon using them opposed to real physical interpersonal communication. I prefer calls and in-person visitations, but don't we all.

 

 

Birthdays are for others to celebrate you...

 

In the cult of the family, birthdays are a great facade. But amongst friends, it's entirely different.

 

Interesting perspective, but elaborate. “To celebrate you”, how and why am I being celebrated or should be celebrated? Shouldn’t acts of virtue and achievements be celebrated, instead of just celebrating someone because they have been succesfully consuming oxygen for 365 days?

 

Explain your reasoning as to why there is a difference between; birthdays amongst family is a facade vs birthday amongst friends is not.

 

[TheFifthApe]

The reason you would celebrate your life on your birthday as opposed to any other day is because it is the day that you were born. The day you came into the world... If you accept that celebrating your life is a good thing, it's hard to imagine a better event for that celebration to be tied to...

 

You've made it this far, and that's worth celebrating.

 

Delighted that the one and only Kevin Beal chimed in , now I’m just waiting for Stef haha.

 

But seriously, I’m questioning why even acknowledge it at all, let alone find a cause for celebration. The date I was born is long gone, our birthdays are just an approximate yearly anniversary. I guess most if not all would agree that celebrating life is important, but I don’t want someone to celebrate me just because I’m alive. To have a preference with this date over another date does seem trivial or at the very least it doesn’t feel genuine. My life supersedes the date I was born and I am happy as shit that I woke up this morning, but when I reward myself it is based on the merits of good deeds.

 

 

This made me think about any celebration, not just an individual's birthday. What justifies something being so important that an annual celebration for it is desired? Like annually celebrating the day two people are married.

 

I agree, if you love your wife go and celebrate your togetherness right now instead counting down the clock. She might not be there for the next anniversary or even worse you might not be there, but she's here right now. Honestly, I am just not too sure that delineating things like this is appropriate.

 

 

Same goes for marriages or anything else. Celebrate it whenever you want, but it's not this completely arbitrary decision to celebrate a marriage on the same day of the year as the wedding.

 

It is ritualistic, and rituals can be totally awesome! Have you had yourself a good ritual lately?

 

You're right it is not arbitrary and rituals are fine (unless it involves going to church lol). I just think that there should be an element of surprise of some sort. Spontaneous celebrations are great, a spur of the moment road trip, finding front row seats to an Arctic Monkeys concert underneath my pillow and what have you all feels genuine and real. Delineation does not.

[tasmlab]

Celebrate or don't.  What ever floats your boat.  IMO.

 

Birthdays get fun with kids.  They get super excited for both my wife's and my birthdays.  They try to make us breakfast in bed, make homemade cards, get excited about candles and cake, like to do "you smell like a monkey" during the song, etc.

[Better Future]

I only had one birthday. Apparently my friends are born again every time the earth orbits the sun.

[Kevin Beal]

Delighted that the one and only Kevin Beal chimed in , now I’m just waiting for Stef haha.

 

But seriously, I’m questioning why even acknowledge it at all, let alone find a cause for celebration. The date I was born is long gone, our birthdays are just an approximate yearly anniversary. I guess most if not all would agree that celebrating life is important, but I don’t want someone to celebrate me just because I’m alive. To have a preference with this date over another date does seem trivial or at the very least it doesn’t feel genuine. My life supersedes the date I was born and I am happy as shit that I woke up this morning, but when I reward myself it is based on the merits of good deeds.

Haha. Well, that's a good point.

 

On the one hand, I want to honor myself and my life, but a lot of people are alive and are not worth celebrating, imo. The simple fact of staying alive another year is not really a challenge to people in most of the modern world.

 

If I'm honoring my life, I want that to be because of my achievements or because of especially good fortune, or something like that. Having the celebration on the anniversary of my birth, rather than tied specifically to some achievement,... or good fortune, as I mentioned, does seem to make less sense, given what the celebration is for. That is, I'm less so celebrating me, and more celebrating what I've done.

 

Is it too late to switch sides of this debate?

[Better Future]

You have officially switched sides.

 

Robert Mugabe celebrates his 91st birthday with hate-filled speech in which he threatens to take land from white farmers.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2973802/Robert-Mugabe-celebrates-91st-birthday-hate-filled-speech-threatens-land-white-farmers.html

[Mothra]

It is ritualistic, and rituals can be totally awesome! Have you had yourself a good ritual lately?

 

I have a visceral negative reaction to the concept of rituals - birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, weddings, funerals, and all the assorted religious nonsense. All of them really rub me the wrong way. I think it's because of the lack of originality and they inevitably end up feeling fake. Sure, people may tweak a thing here or there, but rituals follow a template that has been laid out by someone else. It's like we allow people just enough freedom to change details, but people will look at you like you're crazy if you decide to change the basic template, or heaven forbid, forgo it all together.

[Omegahero09]

Interesting perspective, but elaborate. “To celebrate you”, how and why am I being celebrated or should be celebrated? Shouldn’t acts of virtue and achievements be celebrated, instead of just celebrating someone because they have been succesfully consuming oxygen for 365 days?

 

Explain your reasoning as to why there is a difference between; birthdays amongst family is a facade vs birthday amongst friends is not.

 

Celebrate you: To show appreciation, and to return the joy and whatever value you give to others via gifts, surprises, and company. The day of your birth is the day you came into the world, and we are celebrating that- and you! Yes, acts of virtue and achievements should be celebrated, absolutely. However, had you not been born, your friends would not have you in their lives, giving them the experience and value of you as a human being. The celebration of the day of your birth gives all who care about you an opportunity to express how they appreciate you all at once. Yes, if they are good friends/family they will do this anyways throughout the year. But schedules, distance, jobs, etc make it difficult for some to show this in a satisfying manner for all parties, so birthdays make it convenient and fun.

 

Family Cult and Birthdays: Sociopathic and unattached family/friends will use the above mentioned birthday as a way to fake their affections for you. Buy you off with gifts, and buy you off the one day in the year so they have a way feigning their appreciation of you. It also can go the other way too- some will bully others with their own birthday. "You didn't come to my birthday party- you aren't a real friend!"

 

Birthdays and Friends: Friends and those family members who aren't part of the cult will genuinely express themselves on your holiday. The gifts will be more meaningful, they will lift your spirits or maybe even treat you to an amazing time somewhere- to thank you for bringing them value. 

 

The distinction lies in the individuals attending. To the cultists: they eat your cake, watch you open gifts, then gtfo. Your real friends will spend the whole night with you, as much time as they can with you before they go back to the real world again.

[Kevin Beal]

I have a visceral negative reaction to the concept of rituals - birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, weddings, funerals, and all the assorted religious nonsense. All of them really rub me the wrong way. I think it's because of the lack of originality and they inevitably end up feeling fake. Sure, people may tweak a thing here or there, but rituals follow a template that has been laid out by someone else. It's like we allow people just enough freedom to change details, but people will look at you like you're crazy if you decide to change the basic template, or heaven forbid, forgo it all together.

That's really interesting. Why does the fakeness and/or lack of originality cause that strong a reaction in you? Not that it makes you weird or wrong or anything like that, but obviously, many people don't have the same reaction. (Maybe you have terrific reason not to celebrate).

 

I do sometimes dread birthdays and other obligatory celebrations, especially if it's with people that I don't have much of a relationship with. I'm fond of my coworkers, for example. I think they are nice and funny people generally, but I don't like making chit chat, polite conversation for more than 5 minutes. And the more I feel like that's what I am going to have to do, the more I dread it. I hate small talk with a passion and a repulsion.

 

I do however like creating rituals of my own. I like my journaling ritual, my morning ritual where I settle in at work, the ways I celebrate my own birthday (by myself). I think ritualizing things makes them more real in a sense.

 

People celebrate holidays for a reason, obviously. In my opinion, that reason is that they want to reinforce something. If it's reinforcing things which are repulsive, like the pretense at a relationship where there actually is none, then I don't want to participate in that. But if I make my own birthdays about self reflection, my goals, self care, etc., then I'm reinforcing something very particular. I'm honoring my values, goals, achievements.

 

In my journaling ritual, I'm trying to reinforce a sense of self. In my morning ritual at work, I'm trying to reinforce preparedness, focus and being present. These rituals prime me for a particular conscious state.

 

So, that's where I'm coming from, but perhaps there is a better word than "ritual" to distinguish between the two cases.

[Mothra]

That's really interesting. Why does the fakeness and/or lack of originality cause that strong a reaction in you? Not that it makes you weird or wrong or anything like that, but obviously, many people don't have the same reaction. (Maybe you have terrific reason not to celebrate).

 

I do sometimes dread birthdays and other obligatory celebrations, especially if it's with people that I don't have much of a relationship with. I'm fond of my coworkers, for example. I think they are nice and funny people generally, but I don't like making chit chat, polite conversation for more than 5 minutes. And the more I feel like that's what I am going to have to do, the more I dread it. I hate small talk with a passion and a repulsion.

 

I do however like creating rituals of my own. I like my journaling ritual, my morning ritual where I settle in at work, the ways I celebrate my own birthday (by myself). I think ritualizing things makes them more real in a sense.

 

People celebrate holidays for a reason, obviously. In my opinion, that reason is that they want to reinforce something. If it's reinforcing things which are repulsive, like the pretense at a relationship where there actually is none, then I don't want to participate in that. But if I make my own birthdays about self reflection, my goals, self care, etc., then I'm reinforcing something very particular. I'm honoring my values, goals, achievements.

 

In my journaling ritual, I'm trying to reinforce a sense of self. In my morning ritual at work, I'm trying to reinforce preparedness, focus and being present. These rituals prime me for a particular conscious state.

 

So, that's where I'm coming from, but perhaps there is a better word than "ritual" to distinguish between the two cases.

 

I'm pretty sure I am weird, but that's okay. I suppose when I think of the word "ritual" I tend to think more of the institutionalized ceremonial types of rituals. The little ones that you create yourself don't really bother me. Stuff like your morning ritual or a journaling ritual I can see a purpose to it. These are rituals that you have created based on your own needs. Not a list of things to do that someone else has laid out. I have my own little rituals. I have a job where I drive around a lot and talk to people, but I'm an extreme introvert so I need to take time every day to find some secluded area and have lunch and chill away from stimulation. Often these types of rituals have a clear purpose, probably because they are created by the person performing them. Although, even these can become problematic, like in people with OCD.

 

I think the main problem I have is that these  more institutionalized rituals or ceremonies come off so impersonal. They're not about the individual, they're about society. When I think of weddings, baby showers, and even birthdays...  I can't really find the purpose for them besides trying to create some type of social cohesion, which I know is important evolutionarily, but a lot of society these days I find pretty repulsive. These sorts of rituals seem to be about reinforcing fake relationships. Maybe that's because I've never really connected with people so to me, pretty much all relationships seem fake. I personally hate receiving gifts from people at birthdays or Christmas because they are always horrible or impersonal gifts that I would never want, and it just reiterates the fact that these people don't know me at all.

 

I guess the visceral reaction comes from having to go through this motion, knowing that it's just going to come off feeling fake and put me in a bad mood. I remember having a fight with my dad when I graduated high school because I didn't want to go to graduation. He had dropped out, so it was important to him. But to me, I just didn't see the purpose. I already knew that I had finished all of my coursework. I didn't need to wear some funny outfit and walk across a stage and get a piece of paper to feel like it was completed. Same thing with marriage. To me, the relationship is the important part. Going through the ritual of a wedding just feels unnecessary. Birthdays are a little different because it's less of a formal thing. If your friends and family really care about you, every day you spend with them should feel special.

 

Maybe it is all in the terminology. I guess you could call one thing a ritual and the other a ritualized ceremony.

[TheFifthApe]

I see it as a special day that everyone has, and everyone conspires to celebrate your birthday because they will celebrate your's.

 

To put it this way, if declared your own holiday devoted to you, that would be pretty cool, though nobody would probably celebrate it. But if you declared that other people ought to have their own special holiday as well, and they were all to be on a different date, then these people would have an incentive to celebrate your made up holiday so you and others would celebrate their own made up holiday.

 

It would feel grossly disingenuous if a friend celebrated the anniversary of my birthdate simply because they had hoped that I'll celebrate theirs. From a business perspective, that's not a bad trade off if the goal is to get more faces at your dinner party, but I would have to question my friendship with someone like that.

 

Either way you proved my point. We celebrate theirs, so they can celebrate ours because nobody would celebrate my birthday if it was declared a national Holiday. Why not? Because I haven't done anything remarkable or revolutionary that is worth celebrating (i.e., "Martin Luther King, Jr. Day", "Washington's Day", and "Columbus Day"). This point is the crux of my philosophy. Acts, deeds, accomplishments and what have you are fertile grounds for celebratory gatherings and a day on a calender is just a day on a calendar.

Is it too late to switch sides of this debate?

 

Yes it's too late, I've already drawn my sword     haha

Celebrate or don't.  What ever floats your boat.  IMO.

 

Birthdays get fun with kids.  They get super excited for both my wife's and my birthdays.  They try to make us breakfast in bed, make homemade cards, get excited about candles and cake, like to do "you smell like a monkey" during the song, etc.

 

 

Fundamentally your kids just do what you tell them by following your lead and they conform to their environment to fit in and to be well liked to optimize their survival and happiness.

 

I agree celebrate or don't, whatever floats your boat but I am trying to get deeper than that. Look at it this way. If nobody else on the planet was celebrating Christmas would you? (or Hanukkah - apply my assumption accordingly). I know there are some good feelings involved in things like this so generally they aren't questioned, but I don't know if this approach is completely rational. And if one is after good feelings then wouldn't random celebrations, get well parties, picture drawings, and surprise gifts because daddy had his arms about me when I was crying over a stubbed toe or what have be preferred behaviors that rewarded your preferred behaviors. Rather than a fixed date on a Gregorian calendar?

I only had one birthday. Apparently my friends are born again every time the earth orbits the sun.

 

Technically the Earth doesn't orbit around the sun, it orbits around the center of mass in the solar system.

[J-William]

If you asked my daughter then birthdays are awesome because you get to have cake, balloons and presents!

 

For your average adult over the age of thirty cake isn't good because they want to watch their sugar intake, balloons are annoying and presents come when Apple releases the new iPhone...

 

I'm being facetious, but what is a birthday about? When you were a kid it was about having fun and whatever meaning adults gave it. As an adult if you want your birthday to have meaning you can give it meaning or not.

[shirgall]

It's an important principle to celebrate victories, if not as a pick-me-up, at least as a book end to a slice of life. Take a bite. Savor it. Then swallow it down and move on.