Birthday Bogus

So last week was B’s birthday. I have to admit that I am not big on birthdays; I do try to do my best to do something special for those I love on their special day, but, I also try to make sure that I respect the fact that it is their special day and so if they would prefer to spend it with others or alone or doing something else with someone else, then I step back.
I also tend to be the one that no one knows for sure, if at all, when my birthday is. It is not information that I tend to share with others. Personally, I do not see the need. I have no desire to obligate others to behave in some socially dictated way on a specific day towards me that they would have no desire to do on any ordinary day.

Thus, those that know me, know that “no one knows my birthday”, not even most family, the plus side is that no one tends to know my age either, not for sure anyway. The plus there is more of a double edged sword, people treat you either by the age they think you are based on their view of you or they treat you the age they assume people must be to have reached or accomplished certain milestones in life. Thus, there are some that would probably be very surprised to know my age is so “high” or “low” depending on their point of view.

Here’s my issue with society being so focused on birthdays and ages. Birthdays are used to market more consumerism to people. Society implies that we are supposed to party it up on our birthday. Society also stresses the importance of buying and giving gifts on birthdays. In addition, as the numbers increase with each of these celebrations, we are judged by societal milestone beliefs.

You are expected to get your driver’s license on your 16th celebration and there will be questions if you do not.
A lot is made of one’s 18th celebration as well….on that one you are supposed to have the rest of your life planned out.
For your 21st, it is all about being able to legally drink!
Wait a minute, this is your 30th and you are single with no kids?!?!
What is wrong with you??? What are you waiting for??? You do know that your life is over with, right?
Just wait, now it’s your 40th and you are either still single or you a got married to get everyone off your back, so they would think that you really are successful or a normal adult! And that worked so well, that you are now one of the “normal” divorced “middle-agers”!

Usually between that dreaded 40th and or 50th, most people have been judged so much that they question everything about themselves and enter that proverbial “mid-life crisis”! Everyone and their mother has been telling “you” how to live your life and what you should do and what makes you happy so much so, that usually depending on the “you” that you are,
you lose it!

You snap! 

You rebel!

And you start looking for things that actually make you happy or truly excite you and these things make others mad or crazy or upset, but you don’t care, cause you have spent the last “lifetime” caring too much about what others think and even actually believing them that they know best or better or even that they know you, for that matter!
But No More!

What’s the point?
You spent so much energy trying to be part of the rat race.
Worse you have made yourself unhealthy by trying to win a race that is designed to keep you always in the back of the pack.
And now at that time in your life when you should be able to reflect on your accomplishments and take the time to enjoy the fruits of your labor, you are stressing about how you will cover the costs of your retirement, at this point you are well aware of the fact that none of the things that you gave the best of your life to are giving any of it back to you.

Your parents and grandparents worked the same job for their whole ‘careers’ and for their loyalty they got a decent retirement and were able to enjoy their golden years. Then those companies that were built on that loyalty, decided that it was the ‘share-holders’ and not the workers that made the company. The truth was lost to the profit margin! Dividends became the focus instead of the product or service that the company supposedly provided. So much so that we have companies today that make billions and they produce nothing, they sell nothing, they provide no service, yet they make billions. And the workers, they cannot even count on being able to retire, while trust-fund brats from share-holder robbery have never known a day of labor their whole lives.

And there’s your life!
There is where all those “birthdays” got you!
“Another day older and deeper in debt.”

Photo Credit: animatedimages.org

How Old Is Old

Jeanne Louise Calment

According to Guinness World Records, the ‘oldest person ever’ was 122; however, there are claims of others that are older than that……from Nepal to Brazil there are claims for persons living well past Ms. Calment’s 122 years……..

Jose Aguinelo dos Santos, has been issued a birth certificate giving his date of birth as July 7 1888; this would not only make him 126 years old, but also possibly the first free child born to slaves in Brazil, which had abolished slavery just 2 months before his birth. The senior home where Jose resides hopes to conduct tests which will support his age claim. In addition to Senor Santos, there is Senora Leandra Becerra Lumbreras of Mexico, reported to be 127, whom has out lived all 5 of her children and by her admission fought in the Mexican Revolution of 1910. Even more amazing is the story of Bir Narayan Chaudhuri of Nepal; it is claimed that he was 141 when he died in 1998.

As amazing as these stories are, there are even more amazing ages claimed in numerous ancient texts from various cultures. Once again though, the academics are faced with concepts that they seem unable to wrap their published, tenured brains around. The result is most scholars outright deny any fact in the numbers or if they do they say the numbers are wrong. Once again there is the case of scholars using part of a text for historical fact backing while completely dismissing another part of the same text as mere story telling or bad translation or exaggeration. If you follow the logic of these scholars then it would appear that ancient peoples were at best frequent liars and at worse were delusional misguided propagandists. If either is the case then how can scholars in good conscience use any of the texts as reliable sources? 

Sumerian Kings List via beforeitsnews.com

The question that logic has to ask is… How is it that the authors of texts of Ancient Egypt and the Sumerian King List and the Bible and The Chinese Encyclopedia of Materia Medica all chose to LIE about the dates of the people? While, living a long life or ruling for a long time is an impressive thing….would not doing things in incredibly short time spans be MORE impressive? I do understand the significance of claiming ownership to land or throne based on lineage and possession….ie. this land has been ruled by Sumerians, Persians, Egyptians or this is the land of Noah or Adam or Abraham….but then you have to ask…who were the authors trying to ‘out-live’ or ‘out-rule’? And why for so many years?

There have been lots of theories, as simple as, the numbers have been mistranslated, to their ‘years’ were moon cycles not our solar calendar years, to the numbers were added for their mathematical significance. The problem that arises is thus, if it is bad translating than why was it only in numbers of ages or reigns, and why hasn’t it been properly translated since? If the issue is the defining of ‘years’ then why doesn’t any application of what their ‘year’ could have been hold across all the examples? If the numbers are a code then again for the code to be useful it has to be consistent and verifiable…..again not all the ages in any one text holds up to these tests of wrongness. But most notably, why do the ages/reigns decrease to ‘acceptable’ times within each text?

I read, in an article, of which I do not now recall, a telling question that I think can be answered in the ancient texts….Why are human childhoods so long? If you rationalize that a creature’s childhood is a certain percent of their life, whether it be 10% or 25% then you can determine that different creatures have different life spans relative to their development. You also have to define what childhood is. Is it just the physical growth to full grown; or is it the over all development of a mature speciman? If it is the time of physical growth, then humans have a childhood of about 12 to 15 years for females and 14 to 18 years for males, compared to 9 to 12 months for cats and dogs. The average life span of cats and dogs is about 12 to 14 years, with some living as long as 20.  So for simple math lets say that cats/dogs have a childhood of 12 months or 1 year and a life span of 14 years….that means they spend 7.14% of their lives in childhood. So, again just for easy math, lets say ‘all’ creatures spend 7% of their lives in childhood then humans who spend 15 years in childhood should live for about 214 years and if you top out our childhood at 20 years our lifespan jumps to 286! So maybe the answer to why our childhoods last so long is that it is left over from when we lived longer.

Most of the people that live to 100+ years seem to live mostly rural and simple lives. They seem to be throw backs to ‘old ways’ of living. They are rarely rich by material means. They appear happy, content and fulfilled. They speak of their blessings and not their regrets. It seems that the secret to living longer lives is to actually live life and enjoy each day to the best of your ability. Maybe if we all do that we can be our own amazing story in 100 years!