Birthday Buds

29JanuaryBDay, originally uploaded by Randuwa.

It is utterly entwined in our DNA as human beings to seek meaning. We have been given brains that demand eschatological systems within which to work and play and breath and judge the rest of our world. And I for one thank the Heavens for this, because it has led us from a world based of superstitious causal relationships to one rooted in scientific discovery.

And still there lingers a certain fascination with things of chance and magic and unscientific systemization. We play the lottery. We read our horoscopes. We proclaim meaning in chance and coincidental events. And it gives us a different, perhaps more primordial comfort as we do. And so it’s to this end that I share with you some of the people who were also born on my birthday. We form a sort of fellowship of humanity based solely on the accidents of our birth. Therefore, there’s no real relationship at all, yet there remains a question of “meaning”. And a platform from which each of us is free to determine whatever meaning we want—at least those of us who are still alive!

At the very least we can wish one another well. And I do.

FROM TOP TO BOTTOM/FROM LEFT TO RIGHT

R1.C1 ~ THOMAS PAINE (1737 – 1809) American Revolutionary, born in England, confirmed intellectual who seized upon the possibilities presented by a new nation to promote Enlightenment Ideas in written works like, “Common Sense” (1776), “Rights of Man” 1791, and “The Age Of Reason” 1793-94.

R1.C2 ~ HENRY LEE, III (1756 – 1818) American Revolutionary from Virginia who signed the United States Constitution, served as Governor of the state of Virginia, represented Virginia in the newly formed House of Representatives, and was the father of confederate Civil War general Robert E. Lee.

R1.C3 ~ WILLIAM McKINLEY (1843 – 1901) 25th President of the United States

R1.C4 ~ ANTON CHEKHOV (1860 – 1904) Russian playwright and author of “Uncle Vanya,” “Three Sisters,” and “The Cherry Orchard.”

R2.C1 ~ FREDERICK DELIUS (1862 – 1934) German born English composer of classical music: operas, concertos, symphonies, etc.

R2.C2 ~ W. C. FIELDS [nee: William Claude Dukenfield] (1880 – 1946) American Vaudevillian performer, actor and comedian.

R2.C3 ~ BARNETT NEWMAN (1905 – 1970) American Abstract Expressionist painter.

R2.C4 ~ TOM SELLECK (1945 – present) American actor.

R3.C1 ~ OPRAH WINFREY (1954 – present) American philanthropist, TV talk show host, actor.

R3.C2 ~ GREG LOUGANIS (1960 – present) American athelete and AIDs activist.

R3.C3 ~ SARA GILBERT (1975 – present) American Actor.

R3.C4 ~ ADAM LAMBERT (1982 ~ present) American singer, American Idol runner-up 2009.