I am officially twenty-seven years old now, recovering from an evening's festivities, and preparing to have a nice, quiet dinner with friends

In Iain Pears' book The Dream of Scipio, a main character at just such a dinner notes (I quote liberally):

"I will merely point out to you that all of this- food, wine, and even cognac- are nothing in comparison to what they permit, which is the easy and unrestrained exercise of friendship manifested through conversation. We have been sitting here now for near three hours in perfect amity, as we have known each other for many years- many decades in a few cases. We have managed, I am glad to say, not to talk of the war, as this last supper- my imagery again, I apologize- is to celebrate civilization, not to mourn its passing. We have talked here of literature, I believe. Some of you I heard discussing the performance of Tosca cancelled last week, taking consolation at having seen Furtwangler conduct it in Milan three years ago. One person I heard complaining about the way Cezanne is now considered a good painter. My friend Julien, who owns a Cezanne, was polite and restrained...'

"'Such refinement, gentlemen! Such delicacy of address, such sophistication of tastes. But not, for me, the essence of civilization. No; instead I heard the goddess brush her soft lips over my ear when I heard my friend over there lean across the table and ask whether it was true that a mutual acquaintance had separated from his wife.'

'Gossip? You say. Idle chitchat? Yes gentlemen, Men in trenches, men starving, men in chains, do not have the leisure to gossip. Gossip is the product of spare time, of surplus and of comfort. Gossip is the creation of civilization, and the product of friendship. For when my friend here made his inquiry he passed on the information necessary to keep the delicate fabric of friendship together....'

'I fear, my friends, we will not have much time to gossip in the future, and we will be too far apart to have anyone to gossip about. So, with this meal, I must declare civilization closed...and turn ourselves into beasts to survive what awaits us..'" (140-141)

I would extend this idea to encompass such minor celebrations as birthdays. Birthdays, focused as they are upon one person, are in essence a wasteful occupation of time and energy, time and energy produced by the work of civilization, and which describe the apogee of the idleness that civilization makes possible. We therefore take birthdays for granted, partially because we do not see the great machinery that allows us to celebrate the birth of one person, and partially because we take for granted our ability to live another year.

However, this is my argument for the intentional celebration of birthdays. The ripple of good wishes, of festivity, and of friendship that flows to one person during their birthday is, as Pears points out, the very stuff of civilization. Birthdays maintain our acquaintances, re-connect us with old friends, and allow us to indulge in frivolity of all sorts. I would say that far from taking them for granted, we should allow them to be precisely what they are: the marking of days for a mortal person, the reestablishment of community in the face of the inevitable, and an idle occasion. Instead of disregarding them, we should hold them as important rites that we are privileged to enjoy, in the full knowledge of the stuff that allows us to celebrate them in the first place.

Thank you all for your good wishes and blessings on this, my birthday. I am a very lucky man to be able to celebrate it with you, and I hope I shall be able to for many more.

I bid you peace, dear friends.