“Move over, July Fourth! You’ve had your turn.” So begins the latest column from Daniel Cantor Yalowitz in the Greenfield Recorder, published the day after the nation marked its 250th Independence Day. The holiday has had its moment, he writes, and he wants readers to think about other dates that deserve one.
Yalowitz is an intercultural and developmental psychologist, and his argument is simple. Everyone has daily challenges, conflicts, awkward moments and frustrations. He calls those “normal, natural, and part and parcel of the human condition.” Joy and achievement are just as natural, he says, and people celebrate to mark them.
He treats completion as a kind of liberation. “In those moments, we are freed from the burdens of waiting, hoping, sweating it out, and simply not knowing,” he writes. Celebrating lets people drop their pent-up anxieties and recognize that something special has been done.
Rituals big and small
How a person honors a date, he writes, is a matter of cultural preference and individual taste. Many rituals include food, music, dance, customized clothing, written messages and applause. Some celebrations are loud and public. Others happen alone, in the quiet of night, with what he describes as a rush of adrenaline or delight.
He adds a caution. When the celebration is for someone else, it calls for “sensitivity and humility,” meaning the person stepping aside so the honoree gets the attention.
In Judaism, Yalowitz notes, people say blessings whenever they recognize a first: the first flower blooming, the start of a day, each Friday shabbat. He says other faiths have similar rituals. Then there are the spontaneous kinds, like a high five for a job well done, a pat on the shoulder when someone scores a basket, or a big smile when a child rides a bike for the first time.
His closing question goes to the reader. Beyond this Fourth of July, what are you most looking forward to celebrating, and with whom, when, how and where?
