The Old Numbers Game

On May 8, we recognized VE Day, or for those of you who are too young to remember, or don’t care about such matters, that is the day we declared Victory in the Europe part of WWII, upon Germany’s surrender. In Aug comes VJ Day when Japan surrendered, officially ending the war. February 14 is Valentine’s Day, July 4^th is Independence Day. That is followed by Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and the list goes on.

These are all just dates and random reasons to get together with people we don’t see often because we don’t like, to spend money we don’t have buying things we don’t need to celebrate because our calendars tell us to. Does that make sense?

Every month, every week, every day is National Fill in the Blank something. We celebrate National Biscuit Week, National Brownie Month, or National Gravy Day while bemoaning the fact we can’t get in those new jeans.

Now to add more to the mix the search engine Google routinely puts what they call a Google Doodle at the top of their page. The Doodle is a drawing that incorporates the word Google in it while still being a picture. For example a few weeks ago the word Google was coming out of a zipper. The reason? It was the birthday of the inventor of the zipper. My first question is do I get him a card with metal teeth? My second question is, if Google does not give equal time to the inventor of buttons, can they be sued for not giving equal time?

The bigger picture of course is why is this information being retained and regurgitated? Why do we need a certain date on a calendar to thank your Mom or Dad or be grateful a war ended?

Must EVERY date feel important? Must every minute, every day, every month be special. If so, that means none of them are special. We as humans inevitably transfer human traits to non human things: talking to our plants, our fish, and our dogs like they were people and yes I am guilty of that as well.

We as human want to feel special, want to feel we have a purpose, so we assume animals, cars, and even days and months must want that as well.

Decide what is important because you say it is important, not because you’re told it is.