I’ve always had mostly negative feelings about birthdays. That might seem like an unusual position to take, and so I feel that I should try and explain.
There are 7.8 billion people on this planet. That’s a lot of birthdays, and the sheer volume of them makes each individual birthday inconsequential. To better illustrate the insignificance, let’s take 7.8 billion and divide it by the number of days in the year to provide an average number of birthdays on any given day.
Google says 21,369,863.0137. That’s twenty one million, three hundred and sixty nine thousand, eight hundred and sixty two other people who are having a special day just like you.
So the equivalent of everyone in Mexico City having a cake and Piñata event.
Every day.
Or the entire population of Taiwan having cake, long noodles and steamed longevity peach buns.
Every day.
Although to be perfectly accurate the Taiwanese celebrate the birthday the day before the actual date. And you have to be fifty or over to deserve the buns. But my point still remains that twenty one million is a hefty human congruence for one day, and casts doubt on the special designation.
If we’re going to celebrate the fact we made another rotation around the sun, then I suppose there’s some merit in a piece of cake to applaud your survival. But balloons and a party seems like you’re overstating the accomplishment. Unless you’re having your cake in a trench outside Bakhmut in which case the recognition of survival is valid.
The real accomplishment was actually performed by the birthday persons mother. I have never given birth. I’ve been born and I watched a person being born. But, I have no memory of my own birth and I think it would be pretty fucking weird if I did. But I bet my mother remembered the day. I came to this realization too late, and she wasn’t around for me to share the thought. So, I think about her on my birthday because it was kind of her day too. If I had the time to it do again, I would have bought her a present for my birthday. I think she did all the work.
Anyway.
I recognize that we all need a birth-day so society can verify that you’ve got enough solar orbits under your belt to vote, or to drive, or be charged as an adult. But I’m not so certain we need a birthday with the hats and the dumbass happy birthday song ritual.
Jesus I hate that song.
I can’t speak for my childhood but I can say with certainty that in my teen and adult years, that I have never participated in the happy birthday choir. But there doesn’t appear to be a shortage of people who demand the song be voiced. I’m not sure why. Tradition I guess, but I find the moment awkward and kind of brutal for all parties involved. It’s worse in a public space like a restaurant, where everyone within ear shot gets to pause their conversations and provide a disingenuous smile for the birthday girl on her special day.
And this shit is happening around twenty million times a day.
Then, depending on how popular or powerful you are, everyone hands over congratulatory cards that get read once and then thrown into a kitchen junk drawer for a year or two. Greeting card manufacturers love this shit. The bare spot in the Amazon, not so much.
But the rainforest is getting a partial reprieve because birthday traditions have made their way into an electronic format with relative ease. Just the other day, my phone was eavesdropping on my text messaging, and asked me if I wanted to save a date for a birthday reminder.
Makes me wish I could tell my phone to fuck off and mind its business. But if the phone could talk I’m guessing it would answer me with a response telling me that my business is its business. That’s how it was designed.
But, in fairness to Samsung there are hordes of people clamoring for an app that reminds them of the birthdate of all of their contacts. I find this bizarre. Why the hell would you obligate yourself to send birthday wishes to people that aren’t important enough to remember without your phones assistance?
I think that a case could be made for some birthdates being worthy of a minor observation. Like multiples of ten for example, or the age of majority that I referenced earlier. All the rest should be noted and then dismissed. No one gives a shit if you turned 31.
And I guess there’s no getting around birthdays for kids. Those special moments when the child in question gets to see how popular they are, and the parents get to see how well off they are.
I always wondered about the Chucky Cheese attraction. First of all there are multiple kids birthdays happening at the same time. So, we’ve got a slew of amped up little hellions screaming and running around with food in their mouths. Hopefully Chucky management has made the tactical decision to cut up those hot dogs so they don’t become known as Chokey Cheeses.
I can’t even imagine what it would be like to work at a place like Chuck’s. I think it would at a minimum make the teenage staffers give serious consideration to the value of personal contraception.
So, I think that other than turning eighteen, or twenty one in the land of the free that every other birthday is inconsequential, or brimming with disaster potential. All old age birthday events are a subtle reminder that your expiration date is a year nearer and I don’t understand why that reality would need to be reinforced. But assuming a person can brush off the a mortality reminder then the day is still fraught with shitty possible outcomes that in my opinion outweigh any benifit.
Expectations for example.
Why do people feel sorry for you if you’re spending your birthday by yourself? Why is there an expectation that you need to be surrounded by people to affirm that you have value? What about the other 364 days of the year when no one gives a shit? Aren’t those days valuable as well?
Sure they are. But on your birthday, the response from the rest of humanity is a day of judgement. A day where you’re forced to expose yourself to the court of public opinion. A day where your value is measured with recognition and maybe presents.
It’s a stupid tradition unless you’re a kid, eighteen or turning a hundred.