Published: Wednesday, 20th January, 2010 3:58pm
Beginning of the end, or end of the beginning?
by Bloggers Corner
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It was my birthday a few days ago. My birthday, my special day. I am a year older, greyer, fatter, wrinklier and not necessarily any the wiser. It did however set me to thinking. Why on earth do we celebrate our birthdays? I will be the first to admit that human beings are far from rational creatures, and the celebration of birthdays seems to strengthen the argument. We can start off with the concept that it is your special day. Really? How many folks are there enjoying the ride on this blue-green rock we call the world? Say, six billion? How many days in year? Three hundred and sixty-five. So, (and bear in mind I'm no statistician or mathematician) if we take 6 billion and divide it by 365, we end up with about 16 million and change. If the odds are that another person has a 1 in 365 chance of sharing your birthday, it is possible that at least 16 million of your fellow humans do too. Real special, huh? Made just for you.
Anniversaries of being alive start off fast and furious when we're newborn. It's your one week birthday? Yay, one month. Whoopee, you made it to three and then six months . Finally you have your first birthday. Mothers cry and fathers gush. I suppose in the Dark Times (and the Third World), when infant mortality figures were staggering it had some semblance of meaning. However, in the modern world where medical care has rendered infant mortality the exception and not the norm, it seems rather asinine. Thankfully, after our first birthday the celebrations become an annual affair. Of course there are those special years. The sixteenth, eighteenth and twenty-first are heralded (depending on your cultures understanding of when a majority is reached), not to mention the thirtieth, fortieth and fiftieth. After those, things start to become a little bleaker. For the sixtieth there will be a big celebration, marred only by the fact that people look at you pitifully and you receive a lot of pats on the hand and shoulder. It's the beginning of the end, you see.
Three score and ten, or seventy years is what some believe the Bible gives us. So, we celebrate that one with much gusto. Naturally, we have another celebration at seventy-five, but that is more a tribute to you hanging in there for those five extra years. If you're lucky (or unlucky enough, depending on one's perspective) to make it to eighty then another bash is held in your honour. The cake holding enough candles to make those who survived a rather large fire somewhat nervous. The affair will be a huge blowout (pun intended), mostly because the majority of the attendees don't expect you to see ninety.
Get there and the world is your oyster. Your dinner won't be. By the time you've hit ninety you've been told that everything you once enjoyed is now bad for you. No more oysters, beer, red meat, sugar, smoking or any of those other delights you once partook. No, those things are bad. They could kill you! Lovely to get advice from these thirty and forty-year olds who can only wish in vain hope of making it to your illustrious age. Instead of letting you gorge yourself silly and get raving drunk, they'll prop you up against a table and place one of those stupid cone party hats on your head. Kids will be forced to come up and kiss you, all the while pulling faces and saying that you smell funny. You're thinking, so do they. Everyone else will get the steak and lobster, you get a bowl of apple sauce and a prune juice. Happy birthday to you, indeed!
I suppose you can take some measure of joy from the fact that all the enemies you've made in life have more than likely bitten the dust. You could go and dance on their graves like you said you would, if only your knees weren't going to let you down. Problem is that while your nemesi are gone, so are most if not all of your friends. You probably still have family left, but you didn't get to choose them. My own ninety plus grandfather summed this up. My mother once reluctantly informed him that an old friend had passed on, and asked if he would like to go to the funeral. He declined. When she asked why he responded, "Well, he's not going to come to mine, is he?"
So, I celebrated a birthday. I blew out the birthday cake candles and wallowed in well wishes. In spite of it all, I couldn't help shrug the feeling that not unlike a prisoner marking the days of their incarceration on a wall, I was doing the same thing. Perhaps it is because I'm halfway through my three score and ten, perhaps it is just my cynical nature. I couldn't help but wonder when a birthday becomes less about celebrating making it to another year, and more of a countdown to the last. Still, there was cake. Got nothing against cake.
By One Thinking Ape
