The Need To Recover Celebration

People of Western culture have largely lost their ability to celebrate. Festivity and celebration link people to their heritage and place in the cosmos while supplying meaning and validity to life. Mankind, by its very nature, not only works and thinks, but sings, dances, prays, tells stories, and celebrates. We are homo festivus. Notice the universal character of festivity in human life. No culture is without it. African pygmies and Australian primitives frolic in honor of the equinox. Hindus revel at Holi. Moslems feast after the long fast of Ramadan. In some societies the principal festival comes at harvest or when the moon reaches a particular position. In others the anniversary of some event in the life of a cultural or religious hero supplies the cause for jubilation. There are important differences between the cultures that stress cosmic or seasonal festivals and those that emphasize historical holidays, but all provide an occasion for singing old songs, saluting heroes, and r…