Day 346: Born once Die once

So it was my birthday yesterday and it is interesting how my mind resists the celebration of my birthday. Every year since I have been around 20 I really have not celebrated my birthday in terms of having a party for my birthday, getting cards/presents, holidays etc.

It's the same with most holidays for me, but the past few years I have been more receptive to actually celebrating on my birthday, like this past weekend with some friends - yet I still see the moments where my mind has this resistance that comes up.

It's like everyone that knows me well, has learnt through the years to not even both offering me an actual present wrapped up, because of knowing that I will not accept the present, but instead will give some kind of rant about birthdays not being real.

I can remember the starting point of this resistance to birthdays coming years ago when I was around 20 and was starting to question my decisions in life more and more.

There was a quote I read at the time from Ralph Parlette where he said - "Real Birthdays are not annual affairs. Real Birthdays are the days when we have a new birth". Also Bernard once said to me that happiness on birthdays is dependant on Money not God or an energy of Love. Ever since then I really haven't celebrated my birthday.

The direct truth of these statements then led me to spend a lot of time researching the origins of Birthdays as they exist in the world, which when you do so you will realise it takes you to pagan beliefs stemming all the way back to ancient civilizations like Greece, Persia and Egypt.

It was believed in these civilizations that when a God was born, or when a man ascended to become a king, then that date, that astrological alignment must be celebrated through praise and gifts everytime it comes round. This praise was demanded by the Gods and Kings of the times, and as these gods and kings died through the years, we all just carried on the idea of praising a person every time a synchronicity to their original birth occurs every year.

I started to notice how selfish myself and other people can be on their birthday, the self-interest, the irrational demand for attention and gifts just the same as the ancient gods and kings. 

So it became clearer through my research that this birthday celebration was really born of ego, but rather then rediesgn birthdays to what's best for all, I shunned the idea of Birthdays altogether.

More layers would build onto this through the years, such as the self-definition of myself as a type of a lone samurai where the idea is that I am only born once and I die once. Yes we are all born once and die once, but this is something many a "silent warriors" in human history have then twisted into like a spiritual concept with a face of magnanimous nobility, but with an undertone of self-sacrifice, intellectual separation and ego.

Then as I was also learning more about the abuse in the world, the things that go on in silence while we do things like celebrate our birthdays - the rapes, teh wars, the sickness and starvation etc.

I could not see the point in celebrating my birthday while so much abuse was occurring in silence. It has merely been an indication of the ignorance of humanity to make the world a better place to me.

I had shame about the state of the world, coupled with also being ashamed at some of the things I had done as an angry young man growing up, like I felt that my birthday was not worthy of celebration when I have done some of the things I have done while innocent children die in extreme poverty without ever experiencing birthday celebrations.

Then also I was making a valued judgment being confused about why you would be happy about being a year older? Are you happy that you are still alive in such an uncaring world? Or are you happy that you are one day closer to your inevitable death, where it be construed as a suicidal point even. Either way the point of celebrating getting older is something I didn't want.

This point was also coupled with a deeper point going back further of having to grow up very young in terms of adult responsibilities, thus my mind has for a longtime wanted to stay young, to hold onto the youth that i feel i missed out on a lot of growing up.

As i said I have applied much self-forgiveness on these points in recent years, yet the moments of separation still come up.

This past weekend for my birthday for instance, while i did push myself to have fun with some friends which was cool, I still resisted certain moments where rather then letting my friends buy all my food and drinks as was offered, I would produce my card for payment quicker then them.

When my mother and her friend sang me happy birthday when I visited, my immediate response was one of looking down in a coy embarrassment and making a sarcastic grumble noise.

I have since realised that while the system of the celebration of birthdays as it exists is not always cool when one is lost in self-interest. In reality though I can redesign birthdays where I can make it something that is best for all life, where I am not separating myself from birthdays, but instead reforming them, redirecting it to be something based in the celebration of life.

And so I walk - 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not allow myself to celebrate my birthday unconditionally, but to instead resist, avoid and deny the reality of my birthdays existence and its need for restructuring. I realise that I am not an exception to the rule of having a birthday and birthdays are not some kind of evil thing.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a polarity friction where I have defined celebration of birthdays as being something negative and not celebrating birthdays as something positive, when really this is just a valued judgement that keeps me in separation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that I am a better person for not celebrating my birthday, when in reality no person has any more value then anyone else regardless of if they celebrate their birthday or not.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to and hold onto statements from Ralph Parlette and Bernard Poolman where they implied that the celebration of birthdays made no sense and then use this as the foundation of justification for separating myself from birthdays.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed the common sense of statements from Mr Parlette and Bernard as justifications to not celebrate my birthday.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to refuse to see that in this world the ability to have happiness on our birthday in this capitalist system, is based on having money, on how many sweets and presents we get, while claiming to celebrate just because i'm happy to be alive, yet never giving up that money to live purely off this gratefulness to be alive that I claim.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to realise that those without money are most certainly not grateful and happy to be alive existing in suffering.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to refuse to see that through not celebrating my birthday, it has only compromised my relationship building with others in certain situations, which does not assist anybody.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define birthdays as negative in my mind due to the currently accepted foundation of birthdays being connected to paganism and psychotic "gods and kings" of the ancient world with huge egos, without realising that just because birthdays came from these beings, that does not mean I have to celebrate my birthday the way those beings did.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify not celebrating my birthday because of wanting to separate myself from psychopathic gods of the old world.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define the word Paganism as automatically being bad, when in reality this is separation there is nothing evil or bad about Paganism, it purely means a form of religion which is not mainstream.

I forgive myself that because the system of birthdays is indeed based in self-interest, that I have accepted and allowed myself to not want to be seen as selfish by others, to be a part of that self-interest manifesting as resisting gifts and praise etc. When in reality this not wanting to be seen as selfish by not celebrating my birthday is really a cover to boost my ego of presenting being a "good person" that is above selfishness, when in reality I can be just as selfish as anyone else.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a self-definition of being a lone samurai gangster who lives by the sword of my "deep honourable code" of being born once and dying once, viewing myself as the wandering ronin simply existing in between the two posts of life and death, where death is the only thing i expect each year, not my birthday which I have viewed as a one time event. I see how within this starting point of thinking I am purely existing as a selfish ego between the two posts, rather than living as what's best for all life.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that I am being noble within this samurai code I carry, yet i realise there is no nobility in self-sacrifice and ego.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel guilty about having money to celebrate my birthday while so many in the world do not. I see how while it is unacceptable that not all beings have money to celebrate their birthday, that does not mean I have to martyr myself through not ever celebrating my birthday.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be ashamed about some of the things i did as an angry young man and since that time to believe I do not deserve to celebrate my birthday, as a form of self-sabotage which is unacceptable, because everyone's birthday is worthy of celebration.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to punish myself for my deeds by forcing myself to not celebrate my birthday for so many years.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to experience confusion over why you would celebrate being a year older, as if being a year closer to your death is something to celebrate, or surviving another year in such a uncaring world is something to marvel at. I see how while it could make sense to my character, it is really just cynical valued judgements I make to separate myself from those that celebrate their birthday.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to view all holidays birthdays, christmas etc as being selfish holiday of a selfish system of capitalism, which although this is true with their current structuring, the answer is not to separate myself from them, but instead redesign them to be what's best for all life.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hold onto memories of having to grow up early as a child to look after my mother, and that this was the true origin of not celebrating my birthday, because of wanting to stay young, not wanting reminders of getting older, wishing I could get back the years of youth I feel i missed as a child.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to see that acknowledging getting older, by celebrating my birthday has in my mind been like acknowledging another year where I have not manifested a world that's best for all, where I see myself as a failure.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist the acceptance of offerings from friends on my birthday, I realise that if someone unconditionally gives me something, then I can unconditionally accept it, the same way as when I unconditionally give to another, I would like the being to unconditionally accept the gift.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react in negative grunting and physical movements when someone sings happy birthday to me, next time this happens I stick to breathing, forgiving myself and do not allow any pre-programmed reactions to control how I respond in these moments.   

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to take self-responsibility to redesign birthdays to become what's best for all life instead of separating myself from birthdays. 

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to realise that my Birthday does not have to be about the focus of me, I can instead re-create it as a celebration of life as a reminder that I am here breathing and through unifying with my brothers and sisters in equality and oneness, I take self-responsibility to create a world as myself where all people birthdays are celebrated with equal value,

I commit myself to not allowing myself to resist any celebration on my birthday, I see how I have fucked myself in my own lonely prison of the ego through doing this - so as and when I see my mind having thoughts to avoid my birthday, I stop and breathe, I do not allow myself to engage with these thoughts, instead I breathe and continue to do so until there is no more resistance that comes up.

I commit myself to living the realisation that separating myself rom and acting like something doesn't exist when it does is never the solution to fix something. Rather that resisting birthdays, I re-create birthdays to be an example of what's best for all life.

I commit myself to making sure that on my birthday I include as many people as possible, where the focus of the group, of the party is the celebration of all our lives, the celebration of what we can achieve in this world and the celebration of life in general.

I commit myself to creating a world where everybody's birthday is equally valued and appreciated by all.