February 14th, Valentine's Day. This year, today also happens to be Chinese New Year (which technically was yesterday because it originated in Asia; time zone differences, etc, etc).
It is intended to be a day for loving couples, peace / family time, good luck, traditions, and so on. It's a special day, to be celebrated, to cherish things. However, and maybe I am just being my usual 'gloomy' self here, I don't feel anything special about it.
Now, I love the idea of traditions, different dates, memorials, rituals. I love learning about them, studying them, even celebrating them. But, I've been getting this anticlimatic feeling for almost all the holidays/celebrations recently. It is almost like there's no spirit behind it.
Valentine's Day for example; if you are with someone, first of all, you should be (most of the time anyway) treasuring that person no matter what time of the year it is. If that seems to be a bit too cliche, you should at least be able to show your affection, when you want. Valentine's seems to be this giant obligation that everyone must follow. It's too commercialized, just like Christmas and Easter and all those other holidays. The meanings and values behind are lost in the mist of mass production of roses and chocolate hearts. If you are involved, it seems like you are obligated to empty your pockets and take the extra time to do something special right on that day, because your partner would be expecting it. If you are single, well, there seems to be social pressure for you do either join some cult with other singles and mourn your lack of a partner (which, if you were truly that desperate, would be doing the other 364-5 days of the year anyway), or to say that you are proud to be single. Or some other idiocy that springs up on this day that everyone who's past puberty must follow. Even in grade school, when we used to make those Valentine's day cards and buy chocolate hearts to send them to our classmates. It is a well meaning gesture, and I encourage the tradition of doing so (social connections and what not), but it does usually lead into a small competition of who got the most cards and candies.
Onto New Years. I like those mass New Years celebrations, I like the fact that families and friends try to get together on this day*, in this family connections wrecked time in our history. But, again, I don't feel the specialness behind it. At the stroke of midnight, nothing feels changed. In fact, in most of our lives, nothing have changed. We are still in the same crappy situations we are in, unfinished work still needs to be done, our relationship with the rest of the world have not changed a single bit. Life still goes on. The most significant thing is that we'll have to get used to writing 2010, instead of 2009. I think, in an almost archtypical kind of way, this passage of time should be something sacred. Like shedding a layer of skin, burning the old, unwanted, and embracing the new. But it does not feel this way, like something is lost....
I don't know about anyone else, but I would like to regain the meaning behind these celebrations. Without these moments, time feels lost. It seems like we are in this whirl of linear time, that at the same time feels like a loop and does not lead us anywhere. And there is this strictness in which we measure and place and structure events on time, that leads to this diminishing sacredness. At this rate, I'll have to agree with the existentialists.
So maybe our ancestors got it right, when we marked important stepping stones on biological indications. Sure, things would be most chaotic, but it might also seem more significant.
In conclusion.... well, I have nothing else to say.
For those of you who want to do something special, more meaningful for Valentines, here's this very cute DIY Anatomical Heart Card from Cheeky Magpie.
*plus, for Chinese New Year, we get red pockets ^_____^ (which is strangely, gold coloured for me this year).
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