A Year to Remember

Every year for most of us we mark the day we were born with a celebration we call a birthday.  That day represents a day of remembrance, yet the act itself that we remember often has little or no focus for the day itself.  You commemorate your birth and celebrate growing one day older, but it is you yourself that is the subject of the day, not the woman who gave birth to you, nor the act of giving birth.  Both of these are usually overlooked entirely, to the point where those that actually draw attention to it are accused of trying to make the day all about them or all about someone else as opposed to the person whose birthday they are celebrating.

Anniversaries in this way are somewhat peculiar to me, and it is not limited to birthdays but extends beyond them.  Births, Marriages, Deaths, Moments of Achievement, Moments of Loss, Days of Remembrance, among others; in almost all of these cases the events that actually occurred are rarely the focus of the anniversary.  Wedding Anniversaries celebrate how many years people have been married but the Wedding day itself often has little to no mention at all in the events of the day.  Deaths too remember the losses we have had, the people who are gone and are no longer with us to see who and what we have become.  We count how many years it has been and we think about how much we miss them, but we rarely focus on their actual death, how they died, perhaps this is the one example here where that's maybe not a bad thing as it would be painful to relive it.  But for other days that represent moments of our past that we were proud of, the actual achievement is rarely the focus of the celebration but rather the time that has passed and what you have done since or what it enabled you to do.

It becomes quite apparent when you stop and deconstruct these days of celebration and memorial that they are all in essence dedicated to time itself, not the original events.  When we celebrate a birthday we celebrate the number of years, how much time has passed.  We celebrate time itself.  Humanity is perhaps unique in this regard as we appear to be the only species that actually observes time directly.  Others are aware of it passing and carry out routines based upon it such as migration, hibernation, and day and night cycling, but to our knowledge we are the only species that actually understands time - although that understanding in and of itself is rather limited.

The year is almost over, in a few days time we will increment a number by 1 and mark that event with celebrations that will span the globe.  For one day more than any other humanity will come together to celebrate time and its passing.  With our fascination and our fixation upon time, one has to wonder why it more than any other element of life has become so important to us as a species.