Holidays, festivities etc.

Isn't it strange that whole nations suddenly become mad about buying gifts, arranging decorations and preparing unusual (and often unhealthy) foods? Isn't it strange that people should be merry on a definite day, with no regard of their individual condition and disposition? Isn't it strange that the usual timetable is to be broken and neglected, and any work must wait for the end of the break?

This is the way people behave during any official holidays. The time is wasted, the headache is acquired. The absurdity of this tradition is most evident in Russia, where they celebrate Christmas, New Year, then again Christmas (Jan 7/8), and again New Year (Jan 13/14); almost a month gets off as a result.

I do not say one cannot afford any relaxation and breaking the routine. I just say that everybody lives an individual life, and knows when it's time to be happy, or to be sad. When I need a break, I must be able to have a break, and this does not need to depend on somebody else's desires. Naturally, I should not celebrate my personal holidays and griefs so that all the neighborhood gets upside down. People do not need to know about one's personal events at all - and they are to esteem the privacy of the others.

Celebrating various anniversaries and dates is yet another strange habit. Does it really matter how many years have passed from the birthday of some person known in definite circles? - nobody can (or should) be universally known, of course. What does it change if 100 years have passed from the date of some historical event, and not 200, or 50? Anyway, the very notion of anniversary is approximate and often contradictory. What should be taken for the year length? - there is no fundamental physical constant to fix. Since calendar has been always subject to modifications, which calendar should be used to determine the anniversary days? And when a lunar calendar is used, especially combined with a number if religious prescriptions to elect the "allowed" days, the process becomes so complicated that the very idea of anniversary seems spurious.

A striking example is provided by abstract anniversaries, when the years from the event that has never occurred get counted. Thus, the existence of Jesus Christ as a real person is most doubtful - but the whole world celebrates his anniversaries every year; more of that, people get crazy about the approaching year 2000, as if it were anything different of any other year! Many people sincerely believe that the new millenium will begin on 1 January 2000 - though it should be evident for everybody since the secondary school that this date will merely mark the beginning of the 2000th year from the abstract reference point, and it is only with that year coming to its end (on December 31) that 2000 years will be over, and the first year of the new millenium will be 2001 rather than 2000 - which would not give it any special significance, though.

Recent pompous celebration of 850 years of Moscow is one more example of absolute absurdity. First, the very age of 850 is nothing remarkable. Second, the reference point has nothing to do with the foundation of Moscow, being merely the year of first mentioning the name in the chronicles. Third, the very year may well be doubtful because of the existence of different calendar styles in that time, and the way of mapping the old dates to the modern calendar is a serious scientific problem far from being completely resolved. So, the whole country, whose economy is agonizing and population dying out, gets robbed by Moscow to waste many million dollars on primitive entertainment, without any brilliance that would deserve mentioning. This money would be enough to pay all the salary the people of that country do not get for months; a family of two could comfortably live for 50000 years on that money!

They say that people need such festivals. Do they, really? It looks like a handful of the richer people of the country gets bored of their usual entertainment and wants something else, for the poor's expense.