Happy Birthday!
I almost never say or write this to people. And it’s NOT because I’m a No Fun Party Pooper.
I always wish my friends and family a Happy Life Celebration. Why not Happy Birthday, you ask?
How many birthdays have you had? 20? 34? 50? Less? More?
If you think about it, no one has had that many birthdays … unless you’re Buddhist or Hindu and you’ve been reincarnated all those times.
We have all had ONE birthday… That’s right!
That’s the day our Mothers – after nine months of carrying us around and all the life changing work that comes with that – suffered in child bearing labor to have us.
All the rest of those birthdays are Celebrations! So be sure to THANK YOUR MOTHER on the celebration of your birthday… she did all the work!
That being said, I was wishing some friends a ‘Happy Life Celebration’ the other day on-line. And it struck me how different things are now.
Back before computers were all the rage, long before Social Media became a thing, back when Snail Mail was just called mail and Email wasn’t a word yet – we had our calendars & date books to mark not only our errands, dates, meetings, outings and vacation time, but also our friends’ & family members’ Birthdays.
We would write in our date books Get card for Mom or Bday card for Leslie. Then during the course of our day we would go to a shop to buy a card. We would scrutinize each one carefully. We would pick up a few up here and there and try to pick out the perfect one that expressed what we thought of the person we were buying it for.
Some of the cards were funny, some were very sentimental, some cards played the Happy Birthday Song when you opened them.
We read each one wondering, should I get a funny one? Perhaps a serious one? What would they think of this one? We put thought, time and energy (and money!) into getting the perfect card just for that special someone.
Sometimes, if we couldn’t find that perfect card in the shop or if we wanted to make our friend or family member feel extra special, we custom made our own cards. We would buy nice thick drawing paper and colored pens and sketch a design just for the person we were wishing a happy birthday.
Then we got the envelope, put the card inside, we licked the minty tasting glue flap to seal it. We wrote their address on the envelope and the return address. We bought the stamps, licked the stamps, fixed the stamps to the envelope, got high off all the minty tasting glue we’ve been licking, then went to the post office or dropped it into a road side mail-box.
A mailman would eventually come and gather the mail and the journey of the Birthday Card – at a snail’s pace -would begin.
The Happy Birthday Card would then travel a day or two or three, and finally arrive – hopefully – at your friend or family member’s address where they would retrieve it from their mailbox, bring it into the house, sit down, tear open the envelope, read your words and smile.
They appreciated the thought, the sentiment. They appreciated the time and energy they knew you put into making sure they got the card by their birthday… as they probably did the same for you.
Ahhh, those were the days!
Social networking has changed all that.
Indeed, it is convenient not having to remember everyone’s birthday as Social Networking does it for you now. That is an upside.
But the time and thought that goes into Birthday Wishes has decreased dramatically.
Sure there are those that leave a nice thought on your wall. Sure there are those that went through the trouble to download or make a digital birthday card for you.
But most just leave a quick ‘Happy Birthday!’ (or 生日快樂! in Taiwan).
Some can’t even manage to write the whole two words Happy Birthday but instead write Happy Bday or worse HBD or HB.
There are those who don’t wish anyone a Happy Bday or HB or HBD on Social Networking. So perhaps the receiver of the Happy Birthday Sentiment still appreciates the gesture.
For those under the age of say… 20, the process of buying a card and mailing it off to a friend using snail mail is most likely a foreign concept. This younger digital generation does things a lot differently than their predecessors.
Perhaps, I’m showing my age (forever 25! har har), and it IS just the thought that counts, but it just seems to me that we could put a bit more effort into our Birthday Celebration Wishes.
Is the generation of mailing cards using (snail) mail over?
Your thoughts?
That being said, if today is the Anniversary of your Birth… Happy Life Celebration!
Peace & Love
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You can Follow the Militant Hippi/Boston Paul on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BostonPaul
or
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MilitantHippi
You Might also like to read:
1. A few Guidelines I’ve picked up as I forge through Life: https://bostonpaul.wordpress.com/2015/01/07/lifes-guidelines-2/
2. What is a Friend? How many do you have…. Really? https://bostonpaul.wordpress.com/2012/08/13/who-what-is-a-friend-really/
3. Worthy Quotes from Yours Truly: https://bostonpaul.wordpress.com/2011/07/19/boston-paul-quotes/
4. Waiting in Line… a funny little tale we can relate to: https://bostonpaul.wordpress.com/2011/02/11/the-express-lane-10-items-or-less/
The Militant Hippi 
I read this one a while ago, Paul. Good stuff, as always. Anyway, I’ve got a few more hours to finish up my first half century. Take care.
Awesome Brother.
I’m not far behind!
Enjoy.
My envelopes never tasted minty… I don’t say Happy Birthday to little kids that aren’t on facebook and I definitely don’t say happy Birthday to the dead. Also, I’m on facebook very little, so I miss many birthdays anyway. thanks for thinking of me, and enjoy yourself. I know you do. !!
Good to hear from you!
Your Blogging site are very nice.Happy Birthday to you .
They say that youth is wasted on the young but you have the ability to prove that wrong. On
your birthday, make me a promise that you will not waste what you’ve got, live to the
fullest and make the very best of everything. Happy 18th Birthday! Who’s going to celebrate
a birthday? You’re gonna celebrate. Who’s going to blow out the candles? You’re going to
blow out the candles. Who’s going to have fun? You’re going to have fun. Happy Birthday.Your
sweet nature and generous heart are part of what makes you a very special person to me and
so many others. I want to wish you a fantastic birthday and a year of pure happiness.
http://www.happybirthdaypictures.co/
Here in Canuckistan, PM for life, Stevie Herpes, has announced the end of home delivery of mail altogether! Canada Post will now just send the mail to its destination city and dump it in parks. You’ve got to wander around and find your own mail. Herpes, that fucking motherfucker!
“Social Media” is an STD of the mind. Loserbook, The Twit Zone, Snort-a-gram and all the rest are more addictive than crack and FAR more destructive. Hundreds of millions of people have been turned into twitching junkies concerned only with their next hit.
Social Nutworking has taken the meaning & value from just about all human interaction. People routinely ignore the person sitting next to them for hours at a time to maintain “meaningful relationships” with people they’ll never meet and probably wouldn’t want to if they knew what they were really like. And even if they did meet, they’d be ignoring them within 5 minutes, so they could check their device and see what Buttwipe579 had to say about their latest status update.
With regards to birthday cards, some dimwits think internet messages are comparable to greeting cards delivered by mail. On the surface, they might appear so, especially to this generation of iDiots who literally know nothing about anything that happened before lunch. But in practice, these two things are not remotely similar.
The reality is that the technology strips the meaning out of the interaction. Virtually nobody ever sends a message with any real meaning. Actually, it’s pretty rare to send a one-on-one internet message anymore (unless you’re trying to arrange a secret rendezvous). About the most heartfelt message you’re ever going to get is a fucking internet greeting card link that works only about 30% of the time.
Yes, “It is the thought that counts”, but the technology takes all the thinking out of your communication and reduces your ability to think to mere grunts. Here’s the “thought” process at work.
Oh, Sk8rBoy1371 says it’s his birthday. I guess I’m obligated to post an “HB” on his page. Jesus, that took almost 1 whole minute. I should really de-friend that guy.
Now compare that to an actual card. You’ve got to go to a store (if any still exist) pick an appropriate card for that person and pay for it. Then you’ve got to sign it, which gives you the chance to personalize it further with a hand written message. Then you’ve got to go to the Post Office, buy a stamp and mail it. Even if you ARE just going through the motions, the motions are more involved and demonstrate more involvement. You’ve committed far more time, money & effort to send a considerably more personalized & meaningful message than hitting “HB” and the “Post” button.
Good to see you Sedate!
Love reading your witty words of wisdom.
Then put more of yours here and you’ll probably see more of mine 🙂