A friend asked, “How does a philosopher celebrate birthdays?” Parties, huge gatherings and loud music might not be our thing, but the notion of birthdays seems rather interesting. A philosopher is a keen observer. He holds everything in sight as sacred, everything around him from the mountains and valleys of nature to the mysterious and unpredictable temperament of human beings, everything is a messenger that brings along with them the key to the treasures of knowledge. But the greatest source of knowledge, the most worthy of being observed with utmost precision is man himself. Introspection opens treasures that no external source of knowledge can bestow upon a man. And hence, perhaps, birthdays come as a reminder to pause for a moment and reflect on one’s own enigma of an existence.
These days also mark as milestones in the unilateral river of time. Maybe this is why these days bring along with them a sudden wave of nostalgia, and a sense of incompleteness. These are perhaps sensations of subtle realisations that several parts of you have been left in the past. Surely, you have also grown since. So it may ease the eerie realisation of being stuck in the web of connections, that you have borrowed parts from someone, as much as you have given parts of you to others. And in this way, we make by breaking off.
Certainly this is also one more incremental tik in the clock of mortality. Several times over, I have considered the bliss of immortality and how a life that did not start with a reverse clock would feel. Philosophers have argued, rightfully so, that such a prolonged and directionless life will soon loose complete meaning and push one in the abyss of numbness. And while their argument holds great substance to it, I have yet still, pondered countless times on the possibility of the treasures of knowledge that could be explored by an immortal. Recently, a friend upon hearing this asked, “Would that then not mean that this immortal would soon be left all alone?” Or perhaps he would have to grieve the death of his beloveds, over and over again. And perhaps true that the fountain of knowledge could be absorbed by an immortal in ways a mortal cannot even imagine, it is, however, the relationships you make that give meaning to anything and everything, including knowledge. So indeed while immortality would be greatly functional but it might be just that, it is perhaps however, the people around that attribute to this mortality, a meaning enough for it transcend from mortality and become life.
From “The Diary of a Philosopher” by Salman Tahir
