july

Saying rituals don’t matter, is like saying the taste of food doesn’t matter because it all ends up in your stomach anyway - you are not wrong, but well, you’re missing the message

Let me more specific by what I mean when I say ritual:

creating and destroying; flying cars, jet engines, roc.camera, july.rocks /faust

When I think of rituals I think of something like a wedding vow. The bride and groom both say “I do” of some sort - in attendance and in front of people. We have an audience. Everyone knows why they are at the wedding, it’s to see this

But I think this why it’s important to have a real ritual, making it real

Rituals are important because it allows us to move on, get closure and get to whatever may come next. It makes an end to our collective mental models, the worlds we inhabit- rituals are a communication event tool to share who you are with your community and the world - it’s what ties us together

Funerals are an easier one to grasp, albeit less happy. It marks clearly the end of one’s life, and what a joyous thing and unusually wonderful thing to celebrate- someone’s life in full. Appreciating and viewing it like a painting in a museum - funerals are another ritual

Rituals help us affirm, and make the abstract real. It helps us make the ideas we have real, real events. Graduation is another one, I remember thinking it is stupid to celebrate an arbitrary end to a useless diploma. But the value is in the ritual, because now people have lived through your life event