Birthday – Any other Day

What is a birthday? It is a time of celebration, wishes, gifts and a party. Since it is a date in the calendar year when we were born. Really?
Or is It more like a reference to a point in time that happened a while ago.

There are two unsaid and unchallenged assumptions in this concept.

One that this is the day when we were born and two that it is an event to celebrate.

The solar calendar that we follow is a human construct, which identifies, measures and records the dimension of time, based on the physical motion of a celestial body - the Sun in this case. Which means that if we independently look at the motion of sun, it has nothing to do with the concept of time. It is only when we use a particular type of motion of sun as a standard of time, a correlation exists. And if we would have used a different measure - other than the motion of the sun - our birthday would fall on a different date. As is the case in many Hindu families in India and also in some other cultures, where the lunar calendar is used and religious festivals are tacked by the same. Naturally their birthday each year falls on a different date of the solar colander.  Some of them even end up celebrating two birthdays - one with family based on the lunar calendar and one with friends based on solar calendar.

I am compelled to wonder, what if we had chosen a measure of time which was significantly different than what we have today - and would cycle too soon or two far away!

So the day we were born is just an event in time that occurred only once. Still we find ways to believe that the day happens again and again. And the cyclic nature of our calendar makes our birthday repeat. The belief is so deep that some of us even end up believing newspaper columns predicting future based on the month we were born in.

The depth of this social construct is such that we even judge the dearness of our relationship by checking who all remembers our birthday. And the reverse if also true - we remember the birthdays of our close ones, lest they feel they have been ignored. I pity the state of the people who are poor in remembering dates - they get judged for their love and affection based on the memory power!

 

And the another unchallenged assumption is - that birthdays are events to celebrate.

We were born, just an event in our life. We will die, another event. So what is there to celebrate!

The question is : Is it because we have made birthday's repeated annual events that we have to celebrate them or we want to celebrate hence we want to believe that birthdays get repeated!

My guess is that, it is latter.

Most human beings are essentially narcissistic in nature. We simply love ourselves. We love to receive compliments, praise and recognition. It makes us feel good. Most of us don’t miss an opportunity to look ourselves up in a mirror - it sometimes is even the glass-door of our car. We adorn our photographs. While watching an old wedding video, we usually try to look for ourselves in it.

Only when we are ready to look at these beliefs and assumptions, would we be willing to challenge them and look beyond the vanity of getting caught up in the birthday mania; look at it as just another date in the calendar, don’t get mad at friends and family who forget the date; don’t get psyched-up in remembering the birthdays of our loved one - since the “birthday” has literally nothing to do with when we were actually  born.

However there is no harm in celebrating oneself. I would like us celebrate ourselves every day, why limit only to the birthday. By celebrating ourselves, we feel good, happy and confident of ourselves.

So no harm in indulging. Happy Birthdays and also Happy New Year and any other annual event!

Ameet Mattoo

Jan 2015