Celebration of Life

Birthdays have a nasty habit of piling up.  As a child, they are special, looked forward to.  As an older adult, they are part of life.  I don’t celebrate my birthday in a big way, as a rule.  My wife might push for a dinner out or the like.  The start of a new decade is different, however. You have made it through another ten years, a milepost!. Something special should be done to usher in the new epoch – a true celebration of life, if you will.

For the start of my fifth decade, I traveled to South Africa for a month, climbing and trekking atop the Drakensberg – Dragon’s Mountain.  On top of the rim of the Drak, with the sun setting behind, I looked out over the landscape of KwaZulu Natal thousands of feet below.  Somewhere in the cliffs underneath, the bellow of a baboon threatened somehow by my intrusion roared upwards.  I like to think he was just repeating the words of Elias Canetti,

“Whenever you observe an animal closely, you feel as if a human being sitting inside were making fun of you.” 

Elias Canetti from The Human Province

South Africa Life Celebration

Cape Town is what people think of first when they think of South Africa.  Now, Cape Town is a wonderful place to start exploring South Africa from – or last, in my case – but South Africa is so much more.  There is Kruger Park, the Garden Route, but I would suggest the magnificent province of KwaZulu Natal.  Poor KZN gets overlooked even with game parks the equivalent of Kruger further to the north – maybe more so.  Hluhluwe, Imfolozi, Tembe, Sodwana Bay and Cape Vidal show a vast diversity in wildlife reflecting the diversity of environments in a small area.

Those parks are up in the northeastern region of the province.  My interest in KZN was drawn to the western border with the small landlocked kingdom of Lesotho – the Drakensberg and Royal Natal Parks.  Here, rise the highest and most magnificent mountain range found in all South Africa, the uKhahlamba – Range of Spears, the Drakensberg.  In subsequent posts, I will relive some of those magnificent outings, but today is more reflective.

Remember

“The hour which gives us life begins to take it away.”

Seneca from Hercules Furens

“Old age is the most unexpected of all things to happen to a man.”

Leon Trotsky from Diary in Exile

And appropriate for my journey to South Africa, I give you

“At 50, everyone has the face he deserves.”

George Orwell’s last words written in his notebook

So, celebrate the decades as they roll on.  Do something special.  See something new.  Learn or experience this wonderous time we have.  The celebration does not necessarily exactly have to land exactly on your birthday. Only somewhere during the year. 

There seemed to have been special events occurring as each decade rolled past in my life, some planned and some just appeared.  Celebrations of life, indeed.  This time, the celebration was standing atop the Drakensberg.  The next time?

Your turn

More quotes.

“Don’t wait for the Last Judgement.  It takes place every day.”

Albert Camus from The Fall

“The young have aspirations that never come to pass, the old have reminiscence of what never happened.”

Saki from Reginald

Do not let that be you, because for the final word I send it back to Seneca,

“Old age is an incurable disease.” 

Seneca from Epistulae ad Lucillium

What are and have been your life celebrations?