Tags: Birthdays, Age, Religion, Atheism
The corollary of (or should that be to?) the strapline, in case you were wondering, is “What’s it all about?”. This is a consequence of my musing upon the passing of another year, given that it is my birthday today (and thank you again to all the well-wishers); in actual fact, birthdays are not the only times when I muse upon my transit through this earthly plane, but they do tend to focus the mind somewhat. The realisation of the merit of the strapline was quite serendipitous, because it solved a mental mystery that had been impinging on my conscious mind for some time now, although I had latterly managed to consign it to the outer reaches, which is perhaps why, perversely, my mind decided now to give me a break. I was trying to remember the name of an acquaintance I had known fleetingly in the summer of 1972, and who had been very helpful, unselfishly giving me the benefit of his experience, even though, in reality, he was probably only a matter of five years or thereabouts older than I. It should have been a marvellous, carefree period, given that we were relatively free of responsibilities, working as assistants at a prize bingo business on one of the piers at Bournemouth; unfortunately, in my case, late teenage angst kicked in, but I got through it, and managed to have some fun nevertheless. To return to the present, I’d been running through a succession of names, mentally attaching them to this person, without any success hitherto, whereas when I hit upon Alfie, he became the cheeky chappy I remembered. I will discreetly draw a veil over any further recollections, in case Alfie is still with us.
So, birthdays: why do we attach so much significance to them? Aside from what they actually mean to us as occasions, although the name is accurate, as a concept surely they are actually fallacious: they don't denote the anniversary of our creation (that, admittedly, would be somewhat difficult to pinpoint) which, as a notional start point to our physical existence, is a somewhat more satisfying occurrence to celebrate; what we celebrate is our involuntary, and often traumatic, removal from the encapsulated security we have enjoyed for approximately nine months (notwithstanding the periodic inversion that seems to be no less normal than being ‘the right way up’), into an alien and possibly even hostile environment. On the other hand, considering conception as the start point of our physical existence takes us into the murky waters (if you will excuse the metaphor) of what it actually means to be alive, at any given point in time, subsequent to the unashamedly non-religious miracle of the fact that two separate, autonomous entities can fuse and become something else entirely, so I think I will pursue that avenue no further, for now at least.
I am currently reading a very thought-provoking book (details in the window on the right; if you are reading this in a free-standing web page, click on the Home link above to go back to the Blog page on my site) which considers what atheists could, and indeed should, learn from religion. It is undoubtedly misguided to speak for all of humanity when hypothesising upon the human condition, given our wonderful (while infuriating) complexity, but I think it is fair to state that, no matter how good our situation might be at any given time, nearly all of us enjoy a celebration now and again, so a birthday is as good a reason as any therefor and, given that they are free of taint that might be acquired from association with the three spectres that loom over our contemporary existence; namely, religion, politics and money; they present a wonderfully guilt-free opportunity for a celebration. It isn’t quite as simple as that, though, is it? When we are young, birthdays are great: a reminder of our advance into the world of adulthood and opportunity; also, a gratuitous expectation of gifts, whose purpose (or arrival!) we never stop to consider. It is when we attain an age when contemplation has to accept inevitability that they lose their lustre. This can be accommodated and, to some extent, alleviated by spiritual beliefs, and even atheists can find reasons to welcome or, at the very least, not fear the end of physical existence but, nevertheless, the collective illusion we call time moves inexorably forward.
All of the foregoing should be a distinct encouragement for me, now that I have put my thoughts into words, even if they were not what I already believed (or thought I did); unfortunately, I am also subject to another character trait, no doubt the result of something that happened in my formative years: I resist the inclination to become excited about an event such as a birthday, or a perhaps even more contentious one, christmas (which, latterly, I anticipated with little enthusiasm, but to which I now feel better able to look forward), because I knew that the excitement of the day would be followed by an inevitable anti-climax. While that could, with some justification, be considered to be an unavoidable (and perhaps even necessary?) element of human nature, I chose to abjure it; that having been said, I think I have become better at controlling and even enjoying the anticipation, so that the day itself will not be the peak of excitement, from which a subsequent dramatic tumble will be inevitable. That might sound somewhat unemotional, which is an assessment with some validity but, while I would acknowledge that spontaneity does have its merits, it can also initiate unforeseen consequences; life without risk can be very tedious, undoubtedly, but maturity and an ever-encroaching realisation of mortality do, for me anyway, tend to tip the balance in favour of caution (something to which I have been a martyr my whole life, to which those who know me will attest, although that is said with my tongue in my cheek), so I think I will mark the passing of another year by being grateful for what I have, enjoy the day for its own merits, and look forward to whatever might come my way with as much optimism as I can muster. Cheers!