Birthday Reflections 2024: Eldritch Eons and Birthday Drinks on a Wednesday

 

Credit: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/580823683164479108/ 

As has become tradition on this blog, I’m making a post for my birthday! 

Birthdays, of course, remind us that we’re closer to death, but they are also a good excuse to celebrate life—while we have it. I can no longer pretend I’m a young person. As of today, I can’t even pretend that I’m in my mid-40’s anymore.

To loosely paraphrase Gandalf, I’m at an age where it’s becoming increasingly obvious that I can’t choose how much time I have left, but I can choose what to do with the time that is given to me. 

In my Horror and Philosophy class, we’re covering Albert Camus and H. P. Lovecraft as we usually do around this point in the semester. I tend to agree with both that, in the grand cosmic scheme of things, nothing we do matters much. Maybe I agree with Camus that one reaction to all this is to shake your fist at the universe and find meaning in your life, anyway (at least on your birthday!). 

Lovecraft can be pretty bleak: the Great Old Ones dramatize cosmic indifference and the ultimate insignificance of humanity. Yet I think the Cthulhu Mythos is fun despite all this bleakness (even if Lovecraft as a person was not so fun and incredibly problematic). 

Sometimes I feel the weight of all this cosmic indifference (an occupational hazard for philosophers, I suppose), but other times I ask myself, “Sure, you can search for meaning among the stars or in greater, grander things, but why would you do that? What if meaning is found closer to home in all the little things we do just in being human and part of a larger reality?” 

Maybe having relationships with humans and other lifeforms is just meaningful in itself? Or making art or thinking about cool stuff? Or writing blog posts? Hey, maybe even celebrating birthdays! 

And that’s just what I’m planning today! I’ll celebrate my birthday despite, or because of, the indifference of the universe. At least it’s a good excuse to have a drink with some friends on a Wednesday! 

Happy birthday to you, dear reader, whenever your next birthday may be! And happy birthday (or birth-eon?) to this vast, unfathomable universe that I feel lucky to be part of for at least a little while, even though, or precisely because, it can’t return the favor. 

As usual, I’ll end with Weird Al Yankovic’s song “Happy Birthday,” a song that has expressed my attitude about birthdays for at least my last 36 birthdays.