By, Nick Rizzuto

A couple of weeks ago when I was walking back from my final class of the week, I passed a girl wearing a tiara. Strange.  An aquaintence walked up to the tiara-wearing girl and  asked, “Is it your birthday?” After that inquiry was validated, the tiara made much more sense.

But it got me wondering… Why are birthdays so important to us as a culture?  Why do people feel the need to celebrate themselves, more essentially the fact that they exist, once every year?

I did some research on the origins of birthday celebrations and two common explanations came up.   First was the recognition of birthdays being celebrated only by the Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt. Second was that the traditional birthday celebration began in Greece; people would bake cakes in the shape of the moon, put candles in it to mimic the glow, then proceeded to celebrate the feast day of Artemis (the Greek goddess of the moon). They would then bring these cakes to the goddess’ temple to worship her and pray for good fortune.  Learning this, in both instances, I deduced that celebrations were held yearly to honor the existence of a god, or divine being, as Pharaohs were thought to be divine entities in human form.

So, when we celebrate our birthdays, are we equating ourselves with gods? As a whole, we are a culture that accepts the existence of some sort of God-figure (“One nation under God”…”In God We Trust”, “nothing but the truth, so help you God”, etc.).  Perhaps one day a year we are setting a day aside to celebrate our likeness to God.  If this is the case, then the nature of birthdays is entirely narcissistic. We are essentially saying, “Look at me! It’s my special day!” Your birthday is the one day throughout the year where you are sacred – god forbid that someone forgets your birthday or is mean to you or whatever on that day. In fact, it is socially acceptable to take off from work and give yourself a day of rest on your birthday – think the biblical seventh day of creation.

However, the more I think about it, I don’t think this is really the case –  it’s just that there is a certain underlying psychology in celebrating one’s birthday. How many times have you or someone you know been depressed or felt under-appreciated? Your birthday essentially functions as a day where you surround yourself with friends, family, and loved ones so that these feelings are impossible to manifest. Everyone has gathered to celebrate your birthday; to show that they care for you and to boost your mood. People give you gifts, cards and phone calls to remind you that you are important to them.

Are birthdays just a social function designed so that everyone we know has a specific day to show others their importance to us? But, if this is so, wouldn’t it be more virtuous and prudent to adopt a policy of exhibiting these feelings every day of the year? I mean, if it takes an impulse such as a birthday celebration to show people what they mean to us, what does that say about us? Maybe it is just reflective of our innate human selfishness. Maybe we are too busy most of the time to express our feelings, so we need birthdays and holidays to do this.

I’m not saying this is wrong at all, I’m just saying it’s something to think about.  If we adopted the philosophy of 50 Cent and “partied like it’s your birthday” every day of the year, then maybe we could show our appreciation for others more often and overall make our society happier and better.

Take the tiara-wearing birthday girl. Today, on her birthday, she probably felt like social norms didn’t apply to her and wore the tiara to signify that it was her special day.  I’m guessing she woke up to dozens of Facebook notifications and people on her wall wishing her a happy birthday. That’s a great feeling and you all know what I’m talking about. On our birthdays, we feel as though the world belongs to us. All I’m saying, is if we showed our appreciation for each other on a daily basis, maybe we would feel this way every day…

Regardless, Happy Birthday Tiara Girl – I like your style.

- Nick